#4: Rick Sokoloff: Stowe Mountain Bike Club Co-Founder and 4 Points VT Owner

Rick, a longtime Stowe local, is a legend in the local Mountain Bike community having co-founded the original Stowe Mountain Bike Club spearheading the early development of mountain bike specific trails in partnership with the town of Stowe and landowners. The Club thrived under Ricks leadership and the vast trail network delights local’s and brings visitors from around the world to experience our world class trail network. Rick now runs 4 Points VT - a local bike, craft beer and sightseeing tour company. 

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Hello, listeners, you've got Mike Carey here, co host with Ted Thorndike for the fourth episode of the Octagon podcast. we're super thrilled today to have a local legend, Rick Sokoloff, who is well known in the local mountain bike community, having founded Stowe Mountain Bike Club, spearheading the early development of mountain bike trails and In partnership with the town of Stowe and landowners and the club really thrived under Rick's leadership And the vast trail network delights locals and brings visitors from around the world to experience our world class trail network Rick now runs four points vermont a local mountain bike and beer tour company Not to mention rick is my doppelganger People always mistake me for rick when i'm out there on the trails mountain biking with Halloween coming up, I'm actually tempted to go out as Rick and maybe see if people, mistake me for him. Good idea. So welcome Rick. thank you. Thank you. And, just to get it correct, I was the co founder of the Mountain Bike Club. Co founder of the Mountain Bike Club. Hardy Avery was a big part of it. Okay. We were actually talking about him, just thinking of the early names of mountain biking. So glad you brought that up. Look forward to getting into that. Yep. Yep. Great. yeah, let's just kick things off with, first question. how'd you get into mountain biking? Take us back to the early days. I was on the ski patrol in the early eighties and it seemed like all the guys that I was skiing with all winter, we were all on mountain bikes that summer, David, Sullivan had a mountain bike shop and I bought my first bike for 360 bucks. It was a Nishiki. I broke it so many times the first month. He made me upgrade to a 600 Cannondale and I flipped out 600. Now you can't even get a set of rims for 600, right? Shocks. No. Yeah. no pre shock. It had an elliptical chain or gear It's crazy Yeah, I think that's just such a cool thing about this podcast that brings me back to Dave Sullivan shop Was it just the mountain bike shop or the bike shop? Yeah, it was a mountain bike shop. Yep Yeah, no, I got my first mountain bike there. Good old Trek 850 With the climbing bars on the side and I simply thought I was unstoppable Yeah, and I remember David making trail he'd ride his motorcycle in rainy days and we'd follow him on mountain bikes And that's how we built the trail and we would just pluck the little saplings out And that was, and I remember building a trail up off Elmore mountain road like that. It's crazy. early trail building, no doubt. Yeah. on that note, Mike asked you about getting into mountain biking. what was the scene like in stow? Just, the early mountain bike days, how it all started. Yeah. Back then it was, I think there was actually a couple of groups of guys I know, Rick, Richard Spreeter was out with other guys. They were doing their thing and I don't ever remember running into him. We were always riding up in Brownsville. Yup. And I don't know if you knew Doc Page, Russ Page, he and I were good buddies and we were mountain biking all the time up in Brownsville and we were riding stuff that we'd never ride today. Only because it was like a 20 foot mud bog. And you'd never get through it. Once in a while you would and that was a big accomplishment, but mostly you fell in the mud. Yup. Yeah. Yeah. in those days, it was Brownsville. I was trying to think of other early, early stuff. Brownsville was pretty much where we wrote. How about anything off Sunset Rock right there? that was on the hillside. That was afterwards. Afterwards, yeah. Yeah, that was afterwards. and was this all just handsaws? Did you have chainsaws going? No, we just rode what was out there. Mostly. Pre built stuff that was not mountain biking. Yeah, like dirt roads, Grew up in Brownsville and a lot of it was just the dirt roads. Class four. Yeah, class four roads. Yep. logging roads and stuff. Yeah. What, these days you're talking wet, muddy, not what we see today where things dry out. Oh, no. No, there was no thought or rhyme or reason to build a trail. When we got the club started, it was really funny because Hardy was building trail and he had built a lot of trail in Perry Hill and he was building trail. He had the bike shop, which is behind, Ranch camp, that little shop. I recycle. Yeah. I recycle. Yeah. And that was the core. That was a home base for the club and he was building trail back there. And so one of the first things I did was I invited Imba to bring their trail solution crew here to Stowe and Hardy was pissed. He was like, we don't need those guys. I said, Hardy, it's okay. You don't have to show up. He goes, what do you mean? I said, we're bringing them so the town knows we're getting trained by the best that we know what we're doing. Hardy showed up. He learned more than anybody because there already had a foundation of knowledge. The rest of us were just trying to catch up. And then he went out and applied all that and he became an incredible traveler. And so those behind, Katie Hill, what we know of Katie Hill now, but in those days it was pre, when it was preserved. So did you have the agreement from people? Yeah, that's, we called it the bakery 500. Yeah. Tell us about the bakery. there was, Dave Packy. Jersey Dave, we called him. He had a little bakery down there, behind Hardee's shop. And so that was the Bakery 500, because we had 500 acres back there. And you just thought it was playground. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So was that, you talked about Imba was that, could you, the company that you brought in, could you tell us a little bit about Imba is the International Mountain Bike Association. So they have a trail solutions team that travels around the country. They didn't charge us. We just got in touch with them and scheduled it and they actually stayed at my house and I put them up and yeah, they made a little video with my kids. The kids were like. Six and eight and they were on little mountain bikes and they took a picture of them and they used it in their trail in there when they went around the country doing seminars. And was that simultaneous to star trail partnership beginning was, bringing in that organization. Was that, yeah, that was exactly what we started. What is the stow mountain bike club? Okay. That's what we started as, and they changed the name. Once I left. Yeah. I don't know they want to, yeah, let's get rid of the bad baggage. And so you found the Stowe Mountain Bike Club, I assume the first early days were self funded or? we had a, I was just telling the story last night, our first year's budget was 65. Not everyone had 10 bucks. And we'd, we'd go to, we had buddies that were, carpenters, we'd go grab scrap wood and we were building bridges, and. And just doing what we could do. And what year was that? When Stone Mountain Bike Club was founded? It was around the year 2000, I don't know exactly. It was around back then. Cool. And focus, so you were more, you were focused back there, the Bakery 500. Yeah. And Kate, what we know of Katie Hill. Yeah, that and Perry Hill. And Perry Hill. Yep. Yeah. And so those trails, are they still here today? Do we still see some of those trails in Katy Hill? Oh, yeah. yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the whole backbone. Some of it's changed. Zoggs has been chopped up because Cam bought a house. I've built a house out there. some other things have occurred, but yeah, it's still the same. Schweenhaus, was that part of the original? Yeah, that was a little bit different, but that's some old school trail. Yeah, that's been built on and added to, but yeah. Yeah, that, and then, there was one called Squirrel Land that I actually, yeah. I remember that. Yeah, now it's been cut up and changed. But it's part of the climb in from Katie Hill. Yeah, that was the old squirrel Lantra And so did you think so here your first year's budget 65 next year? I assume a little more interest and every year built on that and then you're like, okay We're on to something here. And no not really. We just kept building trail No, you know there was it was also like the core guys that were involved They didn't really want to open it up to the public They were, and it was, and I wasn't going to fight the crew, I was like, great, let's just build trail and go ride bikes. and it became pretty apparent fairly soon that town land and state land was the only place we could build trail and knew that we wouldn't get kicked off. and then it evolved into, if we're going to be on town land and state land, we, it has to be open to the public. So Katie Hill. Was developed as the sacrificial lamb, but we did such a good job. That's where everybody writes Yeah, but we did that to keep people off of the other church you know as far as building trails and you talked about bringing in by in what are some of the just critical foundational pieces to building a good mountain bike trail. I'm sure once they came in and just over the years, you've learned a lot. I'm sure. So just to give us and our listeners a feel what are some of the basics? It's really about controlling the water. Yeah. You don't want the trial going straight down the hill. If you look at the trails, every 10 yards or so there's a rolling grade reversal, right? It's going this way, then coming back up. So water can never build up in a flow, right? So it's going, and then it's always out slope. So it sheds off the side. Part of it isn't as an art and part is the science, right? The art is getting out in the woods And that's what Hardy got really good at he could go out in the woods and just spend time like Figuring out where to build a trail and then you've got a then we would go out and clear the corridor, right? Maybe a Five to ten foot wide section. We're gonna be coming through this way and then after that was clear Then we could pinpoint or pin flag where the exact trail would go. Yeah, but that was really Hardy's thing He did he just got better and the early days was all hand built Trails and I know now a lot of the trails are machine built trails, which give a different feel to it Less features, I think more, it's manicured. Yeah, it's you know a flow where florence is a machine built trail. Yeah, and it Can't get much more fun than that. Right exactly But the old days it was all rudy rocky Yeah, my first so that I moved here full time 2011 and Hardee's and Kimmer's came online pretty soon thereafter and I remember I moved here mostly for skiing and other things Grabbed my mountain bike and rode that and I was like, what the heck is this? Like to me I had never ridden Anything like that. And of course, Heddy Topper came out right around the same time. So in the same week, I rode Hardee's and Kimmer's and had a Heddy Topper. Never looked back. I was not moving back to Massachusetts. but those, but that was before Katie Hill. A lot of people think Katie Hill was the there was part of Katie Hill was done. Yeah. But then we had The fundraising too. Yeah, we did a big fundraiser with her. It was the Stowe Land Trust and with our support and they really gave the mountain bike club a lot of credit because we brought, I don't know, six, 700 more people to the table that had never participated. yeah. Yeah. I remember the town really came together to preserve that, which is, yeah, it's 500 acres and yeah, in the center of the town, there's a nice little bench up there too. You haven't seen it, the bench, which Bonner, bottom of cameras. Yeah. Oh, the bench at the very bottom of Kimer. Yeah. Where Hardee's? Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's nice. Yeah, it's my bench. Next time I sit there, I'll think of you. It's got a little emblem on it. Good to know. Yeah. Would you consider STO. Either now or years before as a mountain bike destination, similar to Kingdom Trails at Berk, or are they different? they're different, but absolutely, I would. And we were always going, or I was always going to the town, asking for permission, trying to get access and build trails. And, I would As a matter of fact, Jed Lipski always reminds me of it. He goes, you were always touting the benefits to the community. And, the economic impact and what it was going to do. And for me it was, it was always a feel good thing that I knew that if we made this thing happen, that a lot of people would benefit. Yeah. Has it surprised you? to me, mountain biking here is Thanks for having us. One of the core activities for people to do, both that live here as well as come to visit. Does it ever surprise you what it's become from those early days? it's exciting to see him. Yeah. I'm really pleased and proud of it. Yeah. Do you think Stowe is up there with, The the big destinations Moab. there's all these mountain bike destinations. I think Stowe Yeah, Stowe doesn't have as much terrain as Moab. Moab is massive. there's so much more there Yeah, We have a lot of people have been coming here. They'll do kingdom. They'll come here. They'll do split the two or Yeah, you know nowadays in vermont. So when I was I became the president of the mountain bike club and You I sat on the board of VIMBA, Vermont Mountback Association. And I did that for about 10 years or so, as long as I was the president, which I've actually, it was like 12 years anyway. So yeah, we started with VIMBA. There were like five chapters. And when I retired, there were 20. Yeah. And we had a paid executive director. yeah, Patrick Kell, who has gone on to do some great things. So Patrick was a member of our club and also Fellowship of the Wheel, which is the Burlington group. And, We needed an executive, I spearheaded the whole Perry Hill getting the state's approval. And it literally took seven years. We had a memorandum of understanding. So we were allowed to ride those trails in Perry Hill and we were allowed to, maintain them. but we couldn't build anything new and, but we were, kept working with the state, trying to, move forward. And the end of the day, the commissioner of Forest Parks and Rec, went from Perry Hill to the state of Vermont. He made Vimba the corridor managers for all mountain bike trails in the state of Vermont. And we were like, oh great, oh shit. We just wanted Perry Hill. And all of a sudden we had this big responsibility. So we had to, hire an executive director. The Vermont Youth Conservation Corps, Tom Hark, we owe a lot, mountain biking in Vermont owes a lot to Tom Hark cause he, Patrick was working for him as a grant writer and we had Patrick for 25 percent of his time cause that's what we could afford and it worked and he still had his insurance and everything else and he had a desk and a computer at VYCC and then eventually we had Patrick 50 percent And then when we had Patrick a hundred percent of the time, he still had his desk and his insurance at VYCC. So Tom Hark really carried it and Patrick was, building clubs all over the state with our help. Yeah. And now we've got a development trail, which is going to connect all of these all across Vermont, which is a big vision, but that would be an amazing trail someday to ride. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Eric Scheinberg was. It's always, the cross Vermont trail is what he was working on. Very cool. So if you're getting on your mountain bike, Rick's going out for a ride, what is your favorite trail? And so do you feel like you have a special connection to any specific trail or zone? Do you know why I'd go right out my back door? I'm lucky I can get to the top of flow in about five minutes out my back door. it used to be five minutes, maybe today it's about 10, but I can go right out my door and I'm on, Katie Hill. So that's typically what I'm riding or where I've been for the last. So I got out from under the club because I was a volunteer and it took over my life and I had to get out from under it and I had to get to work. the next year after I got away from the club, I went over to Smuggler's Notch and I set up their mountain bike program and it, I literally brought the guys from Gravity Logic, which was the guys that built that Whistler bike park. they, came and walked the mountain with me over at Smuggs and they've actually walked the mountain at Stowe with us. We had them here. And if you go off the triple, you go in the woods and you see the yellow flagging, that's a mountain bike trail. It's still there. I pointed out to people all the time. Anyway, so I wanted to do a downhill park in Smuggs. And the owner of Smugs, said, I love your proposal. Let's hire you as a consultant the first year. And the money was really good. I said, as long as we're moving towards my proposal, that sounds great. and I had a good, I had a good year there and I had teenagers taking kids out. So I figured I got to get them trained. I brought in a friend of mine from Sugarbush, that's an instructor, went through the program with them and I've been teaching skiing for a while. So it was pretty clear that Yeah, I get it. There's a lot more to it than just jump on a bike and Mike you went through in my clinics A long time ago with the kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Since then that's been that was 10 years ago. I have introduced over a thousand people to the sport of mountain biking Very cool. Haven't killed any. Didn't even hurt them. that's key, right? Because I tell people that mountain bike, that don't mountain bike, and they hear a mountain biking, and they're a little, they're scared. They think I'm jumping off, big cliffs and stuff like that. So I think there is Yeah, there's a barrier to entry and a lot of it is fear. And, as we're getting older, we don't want to get up and get hurt, but I work up with traps. I use their literally a flat field is what we go through fundamentals and Before doing that, I would have said, it's just riding a bike. we thought we were getting better when we weren't so bloody, right? your legs weren't so cut up. Oh, we had a good day, right? But, for most people, that's not necessarily the way to go. So anyway, after I'd gone through that, and since I've, introduced so many people, I just think, if you're going to go in the woods, it's, It's well worth going through a clinic, review fundamentals, make sure you're solid and know what you're doing and get the most out of it. Yeah. So tell us about now you make that transition. you start four points, Vermont. yeah. So I didn't go back to smugs cause they didn't want to do the downhill park and they wanted me as an employee. And I said, I can't make any money as an employee. I can, so I started four points. And a very good friend of mine owns a brewery and he looked at me and he said, then you got to do brewery tours. And Mike, you were on my first tour. I was. It was an experimental tour. we had run around and I was just going for the free beer tasting. He's a good customer, especially on the beer front for sure. yeah, you went for the free beer but if you remember, I didn't even have the money to buy you free beer. You had to pay your own wife. Jeez, I think I didn't. Did he have to pay for the clinic too? Did he get like a family discount? no, he paid for the clinic. I paid for all that. Yeah, big city slicker. Yeah, moving up the stele. We're looking for sponsorships on the podcast. I saw my mark. No, it was all good. But we ran that, we ran that tour and we ran around and that's become our most popular tour. And The mountain biking is fun. It's been great, but the tours really carry the day. The beer tours. the beer tours are the most popular, but, I've been working with a lodge up at Spruce. for the last eight, nine years, and we do a lot more corporate groups and they started, we started with them with the beer tours, and then the fellow that was, organizing all that, he asked me if I would do a taste to stow tour. I said, what's that? He goes, you go to Ben Jerry's, you go to Cold Hollow, and I said, really, you need me for that? He goes, we'll give you this much. I said, okay, when do you want to do it? And then after we did that for a while, I was, I said, why don't we do an artisan tour? He goes, what's that? I said, I don't know. Give me a couple of days. And back when we were doing those, Richard Sprita had his iron shot. And there was more than, laughing or what was the chocolates, they were hand rolled. So it was artisan nowadays. And so that's faded and evolved into what we call the best of Stowe tour. And I think I told you before, we had the corporate group on Monday and, we just put it together based on what their interest is. And we may go to a sugar house, we may go to the, we use the glass blower in Moscow. Michael and Monique, they're fabulous. And we do all sorts of different stuff. Bring them to see, they want to see covered bridges, they want, waterfalls, what is it? So it depends. And when did you launch this business? So it's nine years old, nine years old, four points for a month. Yeah. We started with one little old van. I had to borrow a thousand dollars to get that van. And now I have a second van and we have a third vehicle and we're renting out buses when we need them. Yeah. And you were telling us before, tell us about the foliage folks that you just had. This was, this is, this was something I'll never forget. I had four women last week where, so we've been working with a lot of travel agents and tour operators. They call us from all over the country and we've got a couple of good relations where they send us really high end clients. And I had four women from the Philippines and it was, The oldest was 85, the youngest was in her 60s. The day before, I'm heading out on tour, I had these women from Alabama going out for a sightseeing tour, and I'm about to walk out the door, I get a phone call, and the woman from the Philippines said, Rick, we don't want to do the tour you have planned, can we go to Woodstock? And I'm like, huh. But I, yeah, I'm running out the door. I have that and I'm, I put it together for'em the next day and we went to Woodstock and they really just wanted, I said, but I don't know, Woodstock, we just wanna see pretty things. I said, great. We ended up having a fabulous day. I brought'em down and at the CHE Club there were two big maple trees that were just. Bursting with color and these four women were out there playing in the leaves, throwing them. And if they were 12 years old, it would have been the same thing. It was just, it was incredible. It was just amazing. So that was just the other day. Very cool. it's a cool story here. Cause as locals we can get grumpy with traffic and all that. at the end of day, a lot of these people, they're just here to, enjoy nature, be a part of it that maybe they haven't had a chance to experience before. So I think that's a cool story. Yeah. Yeah. The mountain biking is, as much as it's been really a big part of what I've done, it's been We've just been slacking off a little bit. We don't have quite as many. This summer it was quiet for me for mountain biking, but we bought half a dozen e bikes and then I work with some other work with some others, but I got the e bikes. This is a recurring theme on the podcast. Thanks for bringing that up, Rick. I know Mike has recently become an avid e biker. I got an, I got gravel road bikes cause if you don't have skills to get in the woods on a mountain bike. I don't want to bring you into woods on a mountain e bike. Yeah. But to go out and to ride the dirt roads, you know what? I bring people on the rec path and they absolutely love it. On the e bike. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Two years ago, my daughter was married and my brother was up from Florida. We had family in from Sweden. We had my other brother from, Jersey. And we put them on e bikes and we rode up and down the rec path. That's all they wanted to do. Let's go back and do that again. That's cool. We take it for granted. What is your take on e bikes on mountain bike trails? I think if you have skills and you're, why not? Yeah. but I'm, I don't want to bring somebody, a newbie out there because they'll get in over their head. And hurt themselves, right? Yeah. that's the risk with e mountain bikes is they can now go up because physically they're able to do it, but they can't go down and they don't have any skills. Yeah. that's the risk. And then, you don't, if you don't really Have a good feel for the bike. It's accelerating on you and yeah. And on average our E-bikes just bigger and heavier than, yeah. Yeah. So trying to manage that going downhill would bet. Tricky. my e-bikes are 52 pounds. 50 pounds, and an average mountain bike is half of that, or 30 pounds. I do give Mike a hard time. He still is an avid mountain biker. Yeah, please, I know that. Just confirming that he's a purist. Oh, definitely. I do have the e bike too, but it's a gravel e bike. Oh, gravel e bike. Yeah, I'll show it to you later. You're going to be excited on it. It sounds like you do some good rides with Lisa. Big tours, we've done overnight trips where we packed the clothes in the saddlebag. Oh nice. Go for an overnight just on bikes. So we just did it, for the last couple of years I've been wanting to do this and we finally went and did it. The rail trail. Yeah. So it's been getting washed out, right? So we couldn't do it. we went from Morrisville, I brought the bikes up there, me and two guys, a couple of friends, one guy runs tours for me, and we jumped on the e bikes and pedaled out to Hill Farmstead. Yeah. And my wife showed up with a van, through the bikes on the rack, we could drink beer and get taken home. So that's a tour that we've been like, that is a good one. Amazing. Is the ride back? That's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you, it was two hours and three minutes in the saddle. It was two hours and 10 minutes. We were gone. It's seven minutes. We're stopping for traffic or what have you. But that's a, it's a good amount of riding. You can, You can't bring just anybody. Now, to me, all e bikes, e bike rides need to end with food, beer, or wine. That makes the trip. That helps. Is the craft beer tours quieting down? Because I feel like the craft beer craze has passed. It's still part of Vermont, but not quite what it was. We're staying really steadily. We're steady with it. We're busy. it's been, we're getting a lot of bachelor bachelorette parties. That's what I was going to ask you. Do you have any good bachelor bachelorette parties? Stories that you can share? Nothing I can share on the air. The bachelorettes are wild. We'll turn the mics off for a little bit and you can tell us some stories. But it's been fun. Yeah, who would have ever thought Stowe was a bachelor, bachelorette party destination? my day you went to Montreal, you went to Las Vegas. Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville, but big groups in Stowe. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. One of my, one of the funniest ones, we showed up and there was too many for my one van, so we had both our vans. And when people get, when we get a group bigger than 14, which is my big van I'll hold, we offer them, you can either have two vans, Or we can rent the fleet bus, the big 30 passenger And this group went for the two bands. It's less expensive option So anyway, so we show up to pick them up and they are all dressed as the trap singers It was hysterical and we had so much fun with them the woman getting married she von trap And we had lunch at traps sam was running around we got pictures with him You And it was just, it was great. We finished the day, our last stop was up at Ten Bends. And we're just finishing up, and we had a lot of fun. And I looked at the girl getting married, and I said, Ah, I screwed up. She goes, Rick, what's the matter? I said, I told the bartender you guys would sing. And she goes, oh. She gets them all together, and they belt out a song. Meanwhile, the bartender looks at me goes, what's going on? It was perfect. I got it on video. I'll show it to you. Oh, definitely. And that's cool. Yeah. It sounds like you're having a lot of fun with this business. My wife, just the way you talk about it, it sounds like you're really enjoying it. My wife said, I finally found something I'm good at. I play with people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a guess. And people, it sounds like you, Philippine, people are from all over the world. Coming to Timotesto, which is incredible. I've had some, you talk about the craft beer. I had during the fall foliage time, I have to raise my prices. and I had a couple came in from Ohio just to go to Hill farmstead and the alchemist. And then I've added in a couple of others and they're blown away. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. So we're going to switch gears a little bit and just talk a little more about how you ended up in Stowe, your life in Stowe. so yeah, I guess we'll just start there. How did you end up in Stowe back in the day? I moved here in 1979 and I was on my way to Colorado. A very good friend of mine wanted to come. He was going, and he wanted to stay on the East coast so he could marry Donna. I said, if we're staying on the East Coast, we're going to stay. And it was as simple as that. Somebody owed me some money they didn't have. They gave me a car. It was back then Skylab was still orbiting the Earth. So we named this car Skylab because we were waiting for it to come to Earth. Yep, it didn't make it the first winter. That was it. I bartended down at the whip. Yeah, I was telling you before we were the dumb waiter. We were literally filling drinks and sending them up to the dining room upstairs. So was that your first job in stow at the whip? It was actually, I had a job for two days with Dick and Millie Marin at town and country. And then I got a job as a bartender and I excused myself and I went back and worked for Dick and Millie a few other times. Yeah. so Stowe 1979, we're going back a long time before I know anything about it. Give us some of the old Stowe back then, obviously a much quieter place, but a lot of quirkiness too. It was a fun place to be. I was splitting my time. I was on the ski patrol and I would work here all winter. And then I was splitting my time going to Martha's Vineyard in the summer. I did that for a while and then that's not a bad setup. Yeah, we're still in the summer was not, it was pretty quiet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember, so there was a, ski shop in town. David Wheeler shop, what do you call it? Front four. And, Will Spalding and Billy Brown were there and they were, Will, I don't know if Bill was involved, but they started doing windsurfing things in the summer. And that one summer I was here, and Will was a good friend, and we'd go out to Lake Elmore. And I sat on the beach one day, and he's giving lessons, and at the end of the day he goes, Rick, come on, I'll give you a lesson. I said, I don't need one. And he got all indignant. He goes, what do you mean? I said, no, I can do it. Because I'd been watching them all day, I saw exactly what they were doing. I got up and sailed away. And to this day he still busts my chops, he goes there was only two people on every day. Did you, I think you told me once you met your wife skiing in Austria. Yeah, so the German Olympic team trained here for the Lake Placid Olympics. And Heinz Schmidbauer, said, oh Rick, you must bring the skiers. I said, okay. So I put together a group of guys and we went over. And the first trip I met my wife. She was a tour guide for the Swedes. I had a group of Americans and we met on the mountain and then, we skied our, put our groups together. I was a hero. My guys got to ski with all the Swedish girls and I picked the cutest one and married her a few years later. So you brought her back to Stowe. You were already in Stowe at that time. Yeah. So obviously you've been here for many years. What keeps you here in Stowe? what makes Stowe unique? It's a great community. It's a great place to be. And yeah, I don't know. Too cheap to move. when you can mountain bike right outside. Yeah. it's your back door. I did the, I find the accessibility. To all the activities is really tough to beat. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. I was just saying, yeah, it's, it's everything there is to do here and it's just, it's home. So I haven't thought about later. Yeah. And we were talking about this before where With all the development and new people in town and second homeowners, there is still the core group, you talk about people, so many locals from being here so long. They're still here. There's still super interesting people here that love the outdoors. And love all these things. it's great just to hear the stories that, you know, that all these connections you have to the local community. Yeah. It is a little sad. Some of the, colorful characters have been pushed out, and people get resentful. They get upset because they can no longer afford to live here. And I get it, but that's happening at resorts all over the world. Yeah. It's not a unique problem to stow. It's all mountain towns. Beach towns, mountain towns, resorts. Yeah, we were talking before you, you did mention a legendary bartending stint at Sister Kate's. Yeah. Do you maybe share that a little bit? I think that was before my time. I remember hearing about it, but I've heard a lot about Sister Kate's. This was before my time too. So Jerry Dever and Teddy Carminetti had the Flying Tomato, which is today The Bench. And there was a little pizza shop. It was a little pizza shop. And Rock King. owned and ran Sister Kate's. And Rock would go to Nantucket for the summer and he was a character. My God was Rock. Yeah, people that know Rock or knew of Rock, ask your dad about Rock. he was a character. He'd play the piano and there used to be some great pictures of him on the wall at the shed and I don't know if they're still there. But yeah, so anyway, Rock was going to Nantucket and Jerry asked Rock, he goes, what are you gonna do with the bar? Why don't you let me run it? Rock gave him the keys, never did inventory, nothing. And then Jerry's Rick, you're my bartender. we had, the upstairs bar and, people like Carroll Brothers would come and sit and play pool for a while. Do you remember? You don't remember. You didn't know Carroll Brothers. I didn't know Carroll Brothers. I did. I did. In the parade? He would show up at every parade dressed as a fixture in this town. Yeah, he was a World War II vet. Happy old man, little man and smiley and yeah. And he'd come to the parades? Every parade and hand out balloons. Yeah dressed up as a clown. Yeah And I think ted was scared of him as a little kid well, I think at first I thought it was really funny and cool and then after the 10th time I was like I can't really tell what's going on here. But Yeah, it was Yeah, I think it was characters like that really I think gave stow some cool flavor. Where was Sister kate's is where the skinny pancake is skinny pancake It was that whole building and we had the downstairs Jerry was crazy. I loved him. He, he wanted to put the waitresses on roller skates downstairs. And we had a, a talent night and became like, there was nothing going on in the summers. It was dead quiet. And we had a talent night and all the locals would show up. John Sachs was like a classical guitarist who would play up in traps in their dining room. And he would come and just would grab another friend musician and they would just jam out. And Joseph was a local character. He got, he turned to John and the other musician and said, Can you, Can you play something? and they're like, yeah, what are you going to do? He goes, Oh, don't worry about it. And the musicians are professional musicians. They're going, what do you mean? Don't worry about it. He's yeah. And he gets up and he starts scat singing and making it up on the spot, brought the house down. it was amazing. And everybody in town was there because it was the only thing to do on Thursday nights. in the summer it wasn't much, much open. Yeah, it was a riot. And in the winter you had the shed, you had Matterhorn was. Yeah, Rusty Nail was the Rusty Nail. Oh yeah, in the play, yeah. The Baggy Knees. Yep, the Baggy Knees. Yeah. But there just wasn't much. Ladies Invited. Ladies Invited, Roger, that was great. Roger and Norma, that was fabulous. Those were all great places. That's when Stowe, but Stowe was a different place and Stowe had bars. So it was a late night place, midnight one, 2 a. m. People would be out and about. I won't say much more about that. Did you get backstory on Sister Kate's though? I've heard a lot about it, so it's really cool to, to hear about that. Yeah. So it was, upstairs was like a nice, bar room, beautiful wood bar and, rock had a piano there and pool table and, you Downstairs was just a big cavernous room. And that's where we used to have weekends. We'd open that up and that's what we did the Thursday night. We did the talent night. So did the roller skate thing ever happen? No, he tried. It was just an idea. Okay. I don't know if he ever tried or not, but yeah, he was pushing for it. so as you think about how Stowe's changed through the years, Any visions that you have, do you have anything that you're worried about with Stowe? Going over the next 10 20 years, anything that you'd like to see Stowe maintain or anything that's important? housing is certainly an issue, it's a little crazy. My house I bought 25 years ago. I couldn't afford it today. And it's, it's, everybody's going, yeah, but look at all the equity half. It's if I don't sell it, yeah, I'm just getting taxed. There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go. If you sell high, you buy high. And yeah, so yeah, that's, that is a problem. Any, visions for the trail network as you look out, we still don't have downhill mountain biking, I don't know if that's something that you think we should have or any other visions for the trail network that you'd like to see? I think they've done a great job with it. I'm really pleased to see what's gone on. And to be honest with you, I've stepped away from that. I had to early on, because if I didn't, it would have, everyone just would have turned to me. So I just had to step away and I also needed to get to work. my wife put up with enough. yeah. So obviously, Stowe is known as a ski town, but it's, as you've outlined really becoming a mountain bike town too. Do you find a lot of people that ski also mountain bike or are there similarities between both communities? Yeah, absolutely. I remember hearing long time ago, the, coach of the U S ski team said if he had only one sport for his team. It would be mountain biking, a lot of core strength, quiet upper body, everything's happening down low. Yeah. yeah, I, I remember, I will never forget, mountain biking with, Jeff Tyler and Lee St. Onge. We were over at Strawberry Hill Farm and, we were climbing, it was raining at the bottom of the hill on the other side. As we climbed the hill, it turned to snow. We dropped down the other side to my house. And, It was, in the snow. The next day, the three of us were on a chairlift together. Yeah. Yeah, it was perfect. That was this week. Yeah, it could have been. Could you mountain bike yesterday? Mike and I, we skinned up. But did you mountain bike in the afternoon? I mountain biked today. No, not yesterday, not today. that'll work. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, it's Another day in paradise. I do remember back in the 80s We would ski in the morning and then after skiing when I was on patrol go out and jump on a bike and yeah Can't beat it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you can April May you still yeah, you can still get those days here for sure. Yeah, so We're wrapping up here. We do ask all of our guests one question if you didn't live in Stowe Where do you think you'd be living if Stowe did not exist? You I spend a lot of summers on Martha's Vineyard, back and forth. That might not be a bad one, but I don't know, either that or, some ski town somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We get that answer a lot. It's when you get used to the lifestyle, living in a ski town, it's hard to imagine anywhere else. Val d'Azur might be nice. Val d'Azur. Sounds good. I'd have to learn French, but I could do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, cool. but really appreciate you meeting with us and just telling us some really cool old school stow stories, development of mountain biking. we've really enjoyed it. So thanks for coming on, Rick. Yeah. We're going to turn the mics off and then get into the bachelor bachelorette. All right. I'll show you some pictures. All right. Sounds good. I hope you all enjoyed that episode with Rick. Sokoloff remember to like us on Instagram. At octagon podcast out. As well. As subscribe on both. Spotify and apple podcasts. Hope you're all enjoying this beautiful fall weather. And we look forward to.