The Rundown: Camryn Berglin finally sits down at the Dialed table. After three years wrenching at the lab and racing whatever the guys threw a jersey at her for, she joins Jake, Lance, Ian, and Matt for a wide ranging conversation on women in cycling before she ships out on a National Guard deployment. Along the way there is a windy Gorge Gravel Grinder recap, a proud update on teammate Kylee Hanel racing with an elite women's squad, and Lance celebrating a birthday he insists makes him feel about 80. Pour a coffee, settle in, and read on for the highlights. Then hit play above for the full conversation.
Dialed Podcast 365 Recap
A Mechanic, a Racer, and a Send Off Worth Hearing
Some episodes are built around a race. This one is built around a person. Camryn Berglin has been a fixture at the lab for three years, and most listeners have heard her name come up plenty, but this is the first time she takes a seat behind the mic. The timing is no accident. She is about to leave for a ten month deployment, so the guys wanted to catch up properly before she goes. What follows is part race recap, part teammate roast, and mostly an honest look at what it takes to build women's cycling from the ground up. It is one of the warmer episodes in a while, and a great one to start with if you are new to the show.
Meet Camryn: The Squeaky Wheel That Got the Grease
Camryn's origin story at the lab is exactly as advertised. She walked into a bike shop three years ago and essentially demanded a job. Jake likes to say the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and she was the squeaky wheel for long enough that it worked. She came up wrenching at REI, moved to Vancouver, and wanted to keep turning wrenches rather than work a register, which made the lab a perfect fit. Five months out from knee surgery, Jake handed her a jersey and told her that if she was going to work at the shop, she was going to race. Bikes have been her personality ever since.
Off the bike she has a kinesiology degree, just wrapped most of a master's in education, and teaches high school PE and health. She is also a combat engineer in the National Guard, which is how she paid for school without taking on debt, and which is why this episode doubles as a send off. She is heading overseas for the better part of a year. The guys wanted her on the show one last time before she left, and you can feel how much the team thinks of her in every minute of it.
The Backpedal: A Brutally Windy Gorge Gravel Grinder
The big race story of the week was the Gorge Gravel Grinder out near The Dalles, roughly 900 riders across the small, medium, and large distances. Ian raced the medium and came in 28th out of nearly 400, second in his field, and gave a proper play by play. The defining factor was the wind, a constant 20 miles an hour gusting far higher and seemingly coming from every direction at once. There is only about a half mile of genuinely technical terrain on the whole course, including one mud puddle that guarantees a messy photo, but the wind made the open sections punishing. Lance put a number on it: a 15 mile stretch he rode at the exact same power as last year took him nine minutes longer this time, purely because of the wind.
Lance opted for the short grinder and called it the best race experience he has had all year, not because of the result but because he finally had teammates to work with and got to use real race craft to gap a couple of riders on a downhill into a headwind. He finished third in his age group and fifth overall, and there is a ten minute breakdown of it on his YouTube channel, which is closing in on 700 subscribers. Camryn kept it short on her own backpedal: school is taking priority right now, though she did win the Cat 4/5 women's race at PIR in a sprint, while cheerfully admitting she probably should not be racing that category. Jake squeezed in the Flogging ride and a hectic week of his son's track meets, and Matt confessed to a transition season with almost no riding at all.
The Leadout: Kylee Hanel Goes Elite, and Pogacar Keeps Winning
In honor of the guest, the news started with women's racing. Dialed Cycling Team's own Kylee Hanel guest rode for an elite women's squad at the Tour of the Gila, a rare UCI road race, working as a domestique and helping set up her leader on sprints and climbs. Her team took the overall, and Kylee was straight back at it the following week at Tour de Bloom in Wenatchee. It is exactly the kind of experience that points toward bigger things, and the guys are clearly proud of her.
On the men's side, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the oldest of the monuments, played out about how everyone expected. Tadej Pogacar rode away with roughly 35 kilometers to go and was never seen again, prompting an honest debate about whether his dominance is starting to get a little predictable. The more interesting subplot was Remco Evenepoel cracking hard and fading to the back, with the now famous line that he is not a robot. Ben Healy rounded out the day in third and reportedly asked Pogacar when he plans to retire so the rest of the field gets a chance. The answer, apparently, is not until at least 2030.
Women in Cycling: The Heart of the Episode
This is where the show settles in and stays for a while. The guys put the questions to Camryn directly, starting with the obvious one: how do you get more women riding, and racing, and feeling confident out there. Her answer kept circling back to a smoother entrance. Clinics that teach the basics like how to change a flat, loaner gear to lower the financial barrier, and women specific rides that build self efficacy before anyone pins on a number. A lot of the hesitation, she explained, comes down to not knowing where to begin, what to buy, or who to ride with, and that uncertainty keeps people on the sidelines.
The conversation got honest about the dynamics that make local racing hard for women. When fields are small, winning a category of three or four riders is not satisfying, and that becomes its own discouragement. Camryn pointed out that the team dynamic is half the fun of a road race, and racing solo against a squad of four or five strips that joy away. The group compared notes with running and triathlon, where mass starts and larger women's fields are the norm, and floated the idea that cycling could borrow from them. There was real enthusiasm for events like Trophy Cup cyclocross, where free entry for beginner women filled the field and turned a Tuesday night into a low stakes party that actually pulls new racers into the sport.
They also dug into the mechanic side of things. Camryn has wrenched at a lot of events, and while she says the experience has been overwhelmingly positive, she has fielded the occasional surprised "oh, you're the mechanic," and a few unsolicited comments from men at triathlons. Lance shared how working alongside her changed his own instinct on group rides, learning to offer help rather than assume it is needed. Camryn's take was simple and worth repeating: saying "let me know if you need anything" is perfect, but jumping in because you assume she cannot do it is what grinds her gears. She wants to see more women wrenching, more clinics, more consistent women's rides, and more ambassadors willing to be a little pushy about getting people out on bikes.
Dream Builds and What Comes Next
Before the send off, Jake got Camryn talking about goals and dream bikes, and it turns out she has the build written out on her computer already. The dream is a custom titanium gravel bike that can do a bit of everything, with SRAM Red, Chris King hubs, and a look inspired by Whiskey components. For mountain biking she leans toward a carbon hardtail and is still a holdout on electronic shifting, mostly because she likes knowing she can fix a cable on the trail. Goal wise, if a teaching job lands when she returns in April, that takes priority. If not, she wants to train hard and aim for cyclocross nationals, which feels very achievable given she finished on the lead lap against national level riders on barely a thousand miles of training last season.
One Last Thing
Camryn's closing advice was the simplest and the best: go ride your bike. Whatever it is, a race bike or a crappy cruiser, get out there, grab a friend, bring your kid, and ride. Ian reminded everyone that his Barton Park Road Race is just around the corner and to please sign up early, and Lance flagged a double gravel weekend on the Oregon coast with Mike Ripley's Mud Slinger events. Jake wrapped it with a happy birthday to Lance, who is now 55 and feeling every year of it.
Update
Welcome Home, Camryn!
A quick update from the present, because it matters. Camryn has since completed her deployment and returned home safely after a full year of active service. From everyone at the lab and across the Dialed family, welcome back. We are proud of you, and we are glad you are home!
Talk to the guys
Got a question or an idea for the show?
Ask us anything about the podcast, pitch a topic for a future episode, send general feedback, or ask about gear. We read every one.