Mahting Putelis, on his Latvian roots in Michigan, his ‘dirtbag’ 20s, realities of adventure photography, emergence of AI & the three things people want

(Publication Date: 4.7.24)

In this episode of We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Mahting Putelis.

 

Mahting grew up in a Latvian community in Kalamazoo, MI. It was extraordinarily formative, and is a source of great pride for Mahting. Adam talks with him about that upbringing and community, and its influences on him.

 

They also talk about Mahting’s history with photography, the realities of trying to thrive as an adventure photographer, and the emergence of artificial intelligence and its effect on Mahting’s photographic work. Among other things, like being a “dirtbag” climber and adventure guide living in a van throughout his 20s.

SHOW NOTES, LINKS, CREDITS & TRANSCRIPT

The We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast is a collaboration with the Chaffee County Departments of Public Health and Housing, and is supported by the Colorado Public Health & Environment: Office of Health Disparities.

 

Along with being distributed on podcast listening platforms (e.g. Spotify, Apple), Looking Upstream is broadcast weekly at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays, on KHEN 106.9 community radio in Salida, Colo., and can be listened to on-demand via khen.org. 

 

Mahting Putelis

Website: mahting.com

Facebook: facebook.com/MahtingPutelis 

Instagram: instagram.com/mahting_putelis 

 

We Are Chaffee

Website: wearechaffee.org

Instagram: instagram.com/wearechaffeepod 

Facebook: facebook.com/wearechaffee

Instagram: instagram.com/wearechaffee

​

CREDITS

Looking Upstream Host, Producer & Photographer: Adam Williams

Looking Upstream Engineer & Producer: Jon Pray

We Are Chaffee Community Advocacy Coordinator: Lisa Martin

We Are Chaffee Graphic and Web Design: Heather Gorby

Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment: Andrea Carlstrom

​

TRANSCRIPT

Note: Transcripts are produced using a transcription service.

Although it is largely accurate, minor errors inevitably exist.

 

[Intro music, guitar instrumental]

​

Adam Williams (00:00:15): Welcome to We Are Chaffee's: Looking Upstream, a conversational podcast of humanness, community, and well-being rooted in Chaffee County, Colorado. I'm Adam Williams. 

​

Today I'm talking with Mahting Putelis. Mahting is a professional photographer and an entrepreneur. He's a ski instructor, and a versatile mountain and endurance athlete. 

​

His upbringing in a Latvian family and community is really interesting to me. I come from a mixed European lineage that lacks clearly defined history and culture and sense of identity, so I'd love to learn from someone whose family roots run deep, and they came up with certain lessons and stories and a cultural identity that was being shared with them.

​

(00:55): That's the case for Mahting. We talk about his Latvian roots that helped to shape him as a kid growing up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. We also talk about the value of community, not only in his Latvian upbringing, but in the years since. And we talk about community as one of the three essential elements that enhance all our lives. 

​

We also get into photography, including how Mahting won his first camera, how he came to learn he has the eye, as they say, and about the realities of trying to make it as an adventure photographer. We even dip into the realm of AI, and get Mahting's thoughts on how artificial intelligence is factoring into photography these days.

​

(01:34): The Looking Upstream podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority, and it's available on all podcast players and at WeAreChaffee.org. The show also airs at 1:00 PM Tuesdays at KHEN 106.9 FM Community Radio in Salida. 

​

Show notes, including links and a full transcript of this and all Looking Upstream conversations are available at WeAreChaffee.org, and you can support the podcast by following WeAreChaffeePod on Instagram, and through supportive reviews on Spotify and Apple. Those are helpful for spreading the good that we're trying to do here. 

Now off we go with Mahting Putelis.

​

[Transition music, guitar instrumental]

​

Adam Williams: Mahting, there are many, many interesting things about you and your story, just from what I know about, I'm really excited to dig into a lot of this a little more. But where I want to start is with something that is especially unique to you in terms of podcast guests we have had here, and that is when you were a child growing up, that Latvian call and response music was a thing for you, it was something of interest. I would love to know more about this.

​

Mahting Putelis (02:49): Well, thanks for saying as much, I don't think we often get told that we're that interesting, but I appreciate it. Call and response singing, yeah, so we grew up in the Latvian Pagan Church, and so it's actually called Dievturība, which is translated to God Holders, and it's just a very old Latvian religion. And my mom's dad, I think that's where it came from in our family, and he actually ran the church here in the United States for a really long time. 

And so, we would go up to this place in Wisconsin, where they just owned a piece of property and had, I don't know, a lodge type thing or whatever, and yeah, we just grew up in that space. And a lot of that old school Latvian to me, really, it's that farmer, agrarian society in Latvia, and so it was just a lot of farm work, and like a lot of cultures, there's a lot of call and response singing that happens in the fields of work. And so, that translated into the religious side, if you will, of things.

​

(04:13): So, yeah, I just grew up listening to these, and we would participate in, people would call out something and then all the people would sing back. But in our group, I guess, there was a group of women that were just very good musicians, and with beautiful voices, and so I just really learned to appreciate the harmony of women singing. And it's still, people ask me what my favorite music is, it's a lot of bluegrass, but it's a lot of the [inaudible 00:04:52], and just all these women that sing in harmony like the Gillian Welshs and yeah, all that stuff, so. Yeah.

​

Adam Williams (05:02): I'd like to know more about your Latvian roots, I think more broadly too, because I don't know that I have met someone with those roots, and with such a connection. You grew up in the Midwest, just like I did, I didn't have exposure to a lot of different, say, religious or cultural backgrounds in a small town in Northern Missouri. So, I'm kind of curious if there's more of that connection for you, and what you've learned, and who you see that as who you are now, all these years later, if there still is that deep-rooted connection.

​

Mahting Putelis (05:40): Definitely. So, Latvians are an interesting bunch. So, yes, so for me, Latvian is my first language, so that's what I... I didn't really get a firm grasp on English until I went to kindergarten. So, I learned a lot of English from my brother and sister as they came home from school. But we spoke Latvian in the house exclusively. 

​

So, Latvia is a very small country, so it is weird that you can be fourth generation Latvian now, like my friends who have kids, those kids speak Latvian as their first language here in the United States, which is peculiar compared to any other group of immigrants that have come into the United States from Europe, Eastern Europe. Latvia is positioned in the world as a linchpin for being the most northern non-freezing ports to what is, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, to the Atlantic. So, it is a linchpin in all of Europe as a trade route.

​

(06:53): And so, from as far back as history goes, somebody's tried to rule Latvia in order to control the trade route. And so, for that whole time, Latvians have been fighting back to hold our culture, to not be overtaken. So, everybody, the Germans, the Mongols, everyone has tried to come through there. 

​

So, the Latvian language is also interesting because it has all these... I'll hear words spoken from across the world, across the globe, and be like, oh, I know that word, and it's because at some point in time, some group of people came through Latvia and we picked up that thing. Or in the ancient symbology, you'll see a lot of stuff, like from India, and far off places that are not next to Latvia. And so, fast-forward throughout the years, whether it's Russian occupation, or German occupation, Nazis, you name it, we've been fighting back to hold onto our culture.

​

(08:00): And so, my grandparents, when they showed up, they were essentially fled both Russian and Nazi occupation in Latvia, my mom was born in, they call them DP camps, so displaced persons camps, which essentially is a refugee camp in Germany. My... Sorry, roundabout story. 

​

My grandmother walked herself as a 15-year-old away from Latvia, roundabout way, ended up in Germany, met my grandfather, had a couple of kids, years and years later, and then made their way over to the United States, they were sponsored by the Lutheran church to show up in Michigan and work a farm, like indentured servants.

​

(08:43): And through all of that, my grandfather's whole plan was to one day go back to Latvia and live in a free Latvia. He kind of got to do that. But that was the story of most Latvians who came over between '45 and '55 in the years 1945. And so, we grew up in a Latvian culture in Michigan, going to Latvian school, where we just learned language skills and history and all that stuff, to summer camp, to then to boarding high school, every summer for five years, learning about what it is to be Latvian and the history and language and literature and all that stuff, with the idea that someday we would go back, and that we would be Latvians in Latvia.

​

Adam Williams (09:33): Was that the whole community, you're saying?

​

Mahting Putelis (09:33): Yeah–

​

Adam Williams (09:34): Not just your family?

​

Mahting Putelis (09:35): Yeah, not just our family. In general, that was the idea. And so, given you had people like my grandmother who was from the capitol, and she was a city gal, and when she showed up finally in Michigan, they didn't last very long on that farm because she was from the city, and she was not having it without houses and whatnot. 

​

So, I think they worked half their intended stay, and then the farmers were like, yeah, okay, you can just get out of here because this is not working. So, they went out to Chicago, and then she found her place and became this really influential business woman, both in Chicago and then here in Denver. But she was a city gal. She was a Chanel N°5, big black rimmed glasses, full on city gal.

​

(10:24): And obviously they parted, my grandfather and grandmother parted ways. But yeah, my whole upbringing was this duality of being an American kid and growing up in high school and whatnot, and then all of a sudden, every summer I was in a boarding school in a, what we call, I'll call it the world's richest trailer park in Michigan, because Latvians are just per capita pretty... 

​

They're smart people, who've become doctors and lawyers, and so they have this camp, essentially, at the end of a lake in Michigan, in Three Rivers, Michigan, Podunk Three Rivers, Michigan. Where there's a trailer park, kids camp, everything is there. And so, we grew up being this whole Latvian thing there, and it was in my generation where we really had to come to terms with, cool, you can go back to Latvia, it's free, you can go back there and start being Latvian there. And it's like, okay, well, do we want to? And I'd say probably... I don't know, maybe a fifth of my friends, they live in Latvia now, they are doctors and lawyers and teachers and all the things there.

​

Adam Williams (11:33): The ones that you grew up with?

​

Mahting Putelis (11:34): Yeah. They did, they went back, and they live in Latvia now.

​

Adam Williams (11:40): Have you had these conversations from a philosophical standpoint with those friends, if you're still in touch, to be like, “okay, why are you choosing to go with what our parents and our grandparents and these generations’, this vision they had, as opposed to staying where our whole lives have been?”

​

Mahting Putelis (11:54): Yeah, this is probably, this conversation happened probably 20 years ago, when they made these choices. But we had it back then, people made short movies about it, like they did everything at the time because it was such a big conversation in our general group of Latvians in America. And for me, the outdoors were so important, and the mountains were so important, that I've been back to Latvia, we're actually going back to Latvia to do a backpacking trip this summer, or end of this summer, to explore and share it with my wife and some friends. 

But yeah, the highest mountain in Latvia is, let's just say it's not that tall. So, it's just like... Yeah. That whole portion of it just wasn't for me. So, I definitely contemplated going back, but for me now, it's this deep personal, I wouldn't call it philosophical, I wouldn't call it religious, maybe spiritual aspect of myself is rooted in Latvianism, but maybe more so in nature, and what I learned from my grandparents, and... Yeah.

​

Adam Williams (13:11): Do you feel any conflict about that at this point, about the decision that you've made, but you also could change if you wanted, and what that connection to that history is in Latvia versus, okay, I'm a Latvian with this history that you've just spelled out, and I'm staying here in the US?

​

Mahting Putelis (13:28): My conflict arises certainly in the ongoing notion that Latvia is always on the brink of not being free. Putin would love to do exactly what he is doing in Ukraine, in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. He would love to take the Baltics back and make it part of, [inaudible 00:13:48] the Soviet Union. In that instance, I would go back in a heartbeat, I would go to war for Latvia. Which I don't say lightly.

​

Adam Williams (13:59): Understood.

​

Mahting Putelis (14:00): Yeah.

​

Adam Williams (14:01): I was wondering if there was history either in Latvia or for Latvians of military service, with such risks in mind, did you have to make any commitment to Latvia at any point, or feel a loyalty to that, and then go over there and do any sort of, I guess, make a contribution, whether that's militarily or in some other form, with that in mind?

​

Mahting Putelis (14:28): No. No.

​

Adam Williams (14:29): Is there a military service component that is mandatory?

​

Mahting Putelis (14:33): No. No. Yeah. I think that it's been talked about, I think maybe at certain times there was, but it's not now.

​

Adam Williams (14:42): Even with what has happened to Ukraine and so on?

​

Mahting Putelis (14:42): Yeah.

​

Adam Williams (14:42): Okay.

​

Mahting Putelis (14:46): Yeah. I will say that there have been, just a tangent of that, is that there have a bunch of Latvian-Americans who are Americans, they're in that same grouping as me, but that went into the military, and rose in the ranks of American military, and then have now made the ... I don't know that they've made the switch, but they made it such that when Latvia became part of NATO. 

​

They made sure that the American military was positioning itself in places of power in Latvia in order to build Latvian military strength with the help of America. So, in the same sense that Latvian Americans became lawyers and doctors and whatever, we've put ourselves in places of power in order to help Latvia become stronger. Yeah.

​

Adam Williams (15:40): Okay. When you were growing up and it was such a community like you described, was there any sort of perspective, like we are us, everybody else in America is them, was there any sort of discussion of what was, say, who was acceptable to date, or to have friendships with, or to relate to in any sort of way that was outside of that community?

​

Mahting Putelis (16:06): Yeah. I have a lot of Latvian friends who married other Latvians, there's a lot of that. Or if they married Americans... I don't know that it's like, nobody was like, oh, you shouldn't do that, but I know a lot of those spouses that maybe weren't Latvian, they speak or understand Latvian now, which is crazy, because Latvian's like, it's not a language worth knowing in the world. 

​

There's two and a half million Latvians in Latvia, and then maybe another half a million Latvians in the rest of the world, you're not gaining anything by learning this very complicated language. So, Latvian comes off the Indo-European trunk, and it's unlike any other language. Lithuanian is a little bit close, but there's no other language. It's not like German, or it's not like Italian, it's just its own little thing. So, there's zero reason to really learn Latvian. But if you're going to be part of the Latvian community, you're going to learn a thing or two.

​

Adam Williams (17:05): And it sounds like it benefits too. And that there's such a closeness and strength of community, which is what this sounds like all of that is born out of, as opposed to say a type of orthodoxy that is saying, no, no, no, we are us, everybody else, it's vice. Don't go out there. It sounds more like it was about strength of community and your history.

​

Mahting Putelis (17:29): Mm-hmm.

​

Adam Williams (17:30): It sounds beautiful.

​

Mahting Putelis (17:31): Yeah, no, I mean, I'm glad to be laughing

​

Adam Williams (17:35): For sure. Let's talk about the mountains, and you mentioned those with Latvia and going back, and of course, here we live with a number of Fourteeners around us, and in a state with so many. You are an athlete in a number of veins, and being out in the mountains as a skier, or cycling, and the different things that you do, rock climbing, kayak... I'm fascinated by this because I think you're who I want to be when I grow up in that regard. 

​

I grew up in the Midwest without mountains and without influence to do things like what you did when you went to Prescott, Arizona, and went to study adventure education. I had no idea such things existed when I was coming out of high school, I just stayed close to home. So, tell me how you grew up with outdoors in your life, and then would come to go to get that sort of education, and pursue this outdoor and mountain life that you have.

​

Mahting Putelis (18:35): Yeah. Boy Scouts, as a kid, Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts, and then a dad who hunted, and so we were just in the woods a lot. Certainly a couple of different big Boy Scout trips, Latvian Boy Scouts, so not like the Boy Scouts of America, but we had, scouting goes way back in Latvia as well, and our Scout leader in Kalamazoo, Michigan, just happened to be the leader of Latvian scouting, in Latvia and America. So, we just had this big connection to scouting, and we got to do some really cool jamboree trips, where we would go to New York, or... We did one in New York, one to Canada, where we get to hang out with 400 other Boy Scouts.

​

Adam Williams (19:24): New York state or city?

​

Mahting Putelis (19:26): New York state, like the Catskills.

​

Adam Williams (19:27): I just wanted to be clear, because we're talking about outdoors, but then heading into the biggest city in–

​

Mahting Putelis (19:31): No, the Catskills. Yeah, so scouting definitely was a big part of it. And then, yeah, my aunt lived out here in Colorado, so we did a couple of family ski trips, we all piled into the car and drove 20 hours from Michigan to Colorado and went skiing. That definitely opened up my eyes to just big, big mountains. 

​

I remember seeing the back bowls of Winter Park for the first time, and skiing down in powder, and it was just like my mind was slightly terrified and blown at the same time. And then, yeah, I didn't really know about adventure education either. I learned about rock climbing, we got a rock climbing gym in Kalamazoo probably somewhere in high school, or maybe eighth grade or something like that. So, I learned about rock climbing, and I was totally enthralled.

​

(20:29): And then, lucky enough, I had a teacher, a English teacher in high school, who... I was a terrible student when it came to education. But it just so happened that when, I remember acing this exam on transcendental writers, I didn't actually have to study for it, because she asked the questions and I could just write from the heart about what I thought about their writing and how it related to nature. 

​

And it all just made sense because given my background. So, she saw glimmers of hope in me, and at one point in time she handed me a, back then they still had books about colleges, and she handed me a book that was all about Prescott College. And that was in my sophomore year of high school.

​

(21:19): And I flipped through it and I was like, wow, this looks amazing, and then the back cover had the price, and the average GPA of students, and I looked at those two things and I was like, that's not going to happen. But yeah, fast-forward three years or whatever, life changed a lot, and somebody asked me what in the world I really wanted to do with my life, and I thought about it for a second, and I was like, oh yeah, Prescott College, that's what I want to go do. And a year later I was there.

​

Adam Williams (21:51): When somebody asked you a question like that when you were young, did you have influence, or maybe it came from within you, to believe, oh, yeah, whatever I can think of, whatever, I can dream, I can do that.

 

Mahting Putelis (22:02): Yeah. The person who asked me that was a personal development coach, and I was literally in the midst of doing a very big personal development course. So, I had had a, let's call it very large transition in being a terrible student to somebody who actually gave a shit about what I wanted to be in life. So, yeah, at that point in time, I was very empowered, and so it was in a place of power that I was like, oh yeah, let's go do that thing.

​

Adam Williams (22:36): That confidence feels extraordinary to me, maybe especially for somebody who is that young. Or maybe it's me talking through the filter of my own youth, and not really feeling like anybody who said, oh, you can be whatever you want to be, it's like they didn't necessarily mean it, or I didn't know what to do with that information, and be able to feel that for myself. 

​

Convention, I guess, is what I felt strapped in by, and I just love that you took that opportunity, it seems to me a pretty pivotal point in your life, as then you have moved forward professionally in various ways to an outdoor life, and in recreationally, personally.

​

Mahting Putelis (23:16): Yeah. Yeah. No, it was pivotal, it wouldn't have happened any other time before that, let's say that. See, I'm glad I did the coursework, and I'm glad she showed me the book, and I'm glad I remembered it, so I could end up there.

​

Adam Williams (23:35): I heard you say on a podcast with Travis Macy, who also is in the area, another incredible athlete that I admire, and someone who's been on this podcast.

​

Mahting Putelis (23:43): I cannot put myself in category associated with Travis Macy. That guy's a beast.

​

Adam Williams (23:49): You mentioned that you lived out of a van for several years, now I'm leaping here to assume that was when you were a rock climbing guide, and things like that. Is that the case?

​

Mahting Putelis (23:59): Yeah, totally.

​

Adam Williams (24:00): So, what was going on with that seven-ish year, I think, if you said on the other podcast, several years anyway, that period of your life, where were you living? What was that sense of, I don't know, freedom, joy, fun, stress? What is that experience for you?

​

Mahting Putelis (24:17): A lot of super fun work. Yeah, so I came out of Prescott College in Arizona, and worked for a

bunch of different programs, so a lot of private schools based in California, some guide services based in [inaudible 00:24:29], and just essentially went from contract to contract. I had a grand Voyager, Plymouth Grand Voyager, sliding two doors on both sides, and just drove that van around. 

​

And during the nice spring, summer, fall, I was living out of the van, and winters I would find a more permanent place to be. But even coursework in the winter. So, I was bopping between essentially Bellingham, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, and California on different courses, and then in between I would just rock climb. So, I climbed probably... If I wasn't working, I was climbing. So, a lot of years where I was climbing 300 days a year.

​

Adam Williams (25:15): That's a lot.

​

Mahting Putelis (25:15): Yeah, yeah. When you're a rock climber, that's kind of what you want to do.

​

Adam Williams (25:19): Yeah, well, again, that's a foreign idea to me. I had to get ahold of magazines probably not even until my twenties, to realize that people were living those sorts of lives. It was just such a foreign idea to me.

Mahting Putelis (25:31): Yeah. That dirt bag style of life, which, I say that fondly not as to... A lot of people will see that as a... I use that as a term of endearment. But yeah, it was fun. It also was super broke, right? You didn't make a lot of money teaching adventure education. Luckily the prices have gone up a little bit, but I still think it's a pretty hard life to... It's a good life to lead when you're 20, but yeah.

​

Adam Williams (26:01): That's the trade-off of that kind of life a lot of times I think, and I think it's really good for us to keep that in mind. It's like, well, how sexy and amazing that person goes out and they just live so freely, but the payoff there is that it is the freedom versus comfort, versus food, versus whatever you need in your life, that as we get older, we tend to handle that equation differently.

​

Mahting Putelis (26:26): Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, no, I'm glad to not be there anymore. If I want to live out of the back of my truck... I still do sometimes. That's the fun part is knowing that I can easily go on a two-week elk hunting trip, and just live out of a backpack in a truck, with no problem. You talk to city dwellers and they're like, you didn't take a shower for two weeks? And you're like, yeah, no, whatever, it's all good. And they're like, they can't fathom. And it's like, I have no problem strapping on my boots every morning and going to walk the mountains looking for elk these days, or something like that, right?

​

Adam Williams (26:59): Right.

​

Mahting Putelis (27:00): Which is a good a life skill I think to have, of this... There's a lot of people who are like... Everyone's so soft. And it's like, there is a lot of city dwelling creature comforts that people can't get away from, and it's nice to know that you can go do hard things in the mountains still, without some of that stuff.

​

Adam Williams (27:23): And maybe even get to where you don't have connection, even if you wanted to turn on your smartphone.

​

Mahting Putelis (27:29): Yeah, totally. Yeah. To know you got to deal with whatever happens on your own. Yeah.

​

Adam Williams (27:36): It sounds like a really formative period in your life.

​

Mahting Putelis (27:38): Mm-hmm.

​

Adam Williams (27:39): It sounds also like it was probably throughout the majority of your twenties.

​

Mahting Putelis (27:44): For the most part, yeah. Yeah. I can't remember exactly what year I settled down with my first wife, but yeah.

​

Adam Williams (27:53): Well, I was just going to ask if there was a time where you remember, maybe it was just a conversation with yourself, and you're like, “I think it's time I grow up,” whatever that means. “It's time that I move into some different phase of life.”

​

Mahting Putelis (28:04): It wasn't that, it was just like if we want to be together with a person, who has a child, and you got to take care of stuff, and actually live in a house, you have to make more money, so then you don't get to live in a van, you got to go pay mortgage and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah.

​

Adam Williams (28:18): Yeah.

​

Mahting Putelis (28:19): Life shifts.

​

Adam Williams (28:21): You would end up moving to Colorado. As I understand it, cycling was part of that for you, professional, amateur, the pro / am what, cycling tour? What are we saying here? What are we describing? Talk about that competition piece.

​

Mahting Putelis (28:39): We raced against pros, we didn't get paid, we didn't have to pay a lot for it. So, I got into cycling, moved up the ranks really quickly, and then when we moved to Boulder, Louisville, I ended up joining a team, and ultimately ended up running the pro 1/2 category part of that team. So, we got a bunch of sponsorship from Lucky Pie Pizza, which is a great pizza place that's all over the front range. 

​

We would put on a race, so we got free bikes, we got free kits, a lot of free race entries, stuff. We traveled to various places in the United States to race bikes. I was never in the pro category, I was still always a 2 category rider, but we had a bunch of guys that were 1s, and we were semi-competitive in those regional races, so it was fun.

​

Adam Williams (29:32): What did you learn about competing against people who were professionals?

​

Mahting Putelis (29:37): A lot of them are on drugs.

​

Adam Williams (29:39): Okay. Yeah. Yeah, we've actually-

​

Mahting Putelis (29:42): I say that jokingly, but I think in reality there was still a lot of that stuff going on, unfortunately.

​

Adam Williams (29:47): Sure. Yeah. I think also, not jokingly. And I will cite another guest we've had on this podcast, Joe Parkin, I don't know if you know him, and we talked about that. Now, in his day, it was going to Europe in cycling.

​

Mahting Putelis (30:00): Oh yeah.

​

Adam Williams (30:00): And this was decades ago, at this point, but yeah, it's a thing-

​

Mahting Putelis (30:06): Did he write a book?

​

Adam Williams (30:07): He did. He's written a couple. A Dog in a Hat was his first memoir, and that is-

​

Mahting Putelis (30:12): You had him on the podcast.

​

Adam Williams (30:13): Yeah.

​

Mahting Putelis (30:13): He sat in this seat? I'm like, wow. So, that book was pivotal to me racing bikes.

​

Adam Williams (30:19): And I think for a lot of people probably.

​

Mahting Putelis (30:21): Yeah.

​

Adam Williams (30:21): Yeah, it's a very notable memoir from that experience. But my point in bringing him up is that cycling and enhancements are, there's a long history, and so I think from that perspective, you're not joking. It's true.

 

Mahting Putelis (30:39): Yeah. I don't know that we saw necessarily a lot of it, there was some of that stuff going around when we were racing. But yeah, it's a good... Being in community for me is always and continues to be really important. And so, having a team that we could rely on was always a lot of fun. And just the weekend rides, you would spend essentially Saturday and Sunday, and maybe some weekend evenings riding with all your buddies, so it was a good time.