Episode Transcript: #770 - Michael Shermer

it I have been paying attention to your work for a long time it's uh you're the one yeah thanks yes

I'm one of those guys I'm sure you've got a lot but uh I've got a bunch of your books here thanks

for bringing those in I really appreciate that sure stuff to read now um how did you get involved

in skepticism I know you started off as a cyclist right uh yeah well I was a a bike racer from uh

1980 to about 1990 about 10 years in between when I was uh first in college I went to Pepperdine and

then Cal State Fullerton and then I just was burnt out I had a master's degree and uh yeah I just

decided I didn't want to do another six straight years of PhD work so I quit and I went over the

placement office at Cal State Fullerton and said well I need a job they said what can you do I said

nothing I'm I have no skills I'm a college student but I like to write so I got a job at a bike

magazine my first job out of college and it was a trade magazine for um for the bike industry but I

got right into cycling right away about a bike the first week and I went so you weren't a bike rider

before this job oh that's interesting yeah yeah and I went to um a big event at uh Griffith Park

where they had a Yoplait Yogurt 50 kilometer bike race and Jonathan Boyer was the big star he had the

first American to do the Tour de France and I saw him it's like wow this is a cool sport so I just

got into it just started uh you know riding and racing and and then I did uh we started Race Across

America in 1992 in 1982 and so I quit my job and just did that for for a decade I had corporate

sponsors and we had ABC Wide World of Sports contract with them to film it and you know we turned it into

a little little mini culture business and you know ultra but the ultra endurance sports were just

taking off the Ironman became famous in the early 80s John Howard who won it uh was one of the first