The Bounce Forward Podcast

Mike McCormack is a legend in the world of mountain bike race promoting, a profession that requires both endurance and perseverance. He’s an endurance mountain bike race founder, promoter, organizer and entrepreneur. But Mike is far more than an event organizer. He’s a deep thinker with a tremendous sense of humor and a fiery passion to get it right—on behalf of the riders and community he serves. He’s the founder and lead organizer of one of North America’s toughest, most celebrated and daunting stage races, the Breck Epic. 

In this episode we discuss all things Breck, diving deep into the UCI’s recent ruling on transgender women and the Breck Epic’s philosophy regarding inclusivity—creating a safe space for all riders. We’ll discuss the art of leading with compassion and kindness, judgment and how he put on a world class six-day backcountry stage race—at elevation—that has become a pilgrimage for mountain bikers from across the globe. We’ll also explore the most generous race deferral policy on the planet. 

Alexandera Houchin is an ultra-endurance mountain bike racer and proud citizen of the Fond du Lac Band of the Lake Superior Ojibwe people. She is fresh off setting a new fastest time record for a female single speed rider on the daunting Tour Divide. In this episode we talk about a range of topics including our government's abhorrent track record on Native American rights, body image, ceremony in racing, sense of place and what it’s like living in two worlds—the ultra endurance cycling community and as a member of the Fond du Lac Band in Cloquet, Minnesota. We’ll also talk the Colorado and Arizona Trail races while diving into the mental side of what it's like racing for days at a time.

Today’s guest is the dynamic Dylan Johnson. Dylan is one of the all-time good guys in the cycling world who just so happens to be a multi-dimensional talent on and off the bike. He’s perhaps best known as a professional bike racer competing in the biggest and baddest ultra-endurance off road bike races in North America. As a racer Dylan has an extensive resume, including a top ten at the 2018 Unbound and he was one of 35 men and 35 women selected for the inaugural Life Time Grand Prix in 2022 and was once again selected to compete in the 2023 Life Time Grand Prix.

Dylan took a strong 16th overall in the 2022 Life Time Grand Prix in a stacked field of riders and after some mechanical issues in a gnarly, muddy, highly publicized Unbound 200 over the weekend, in true Dylan and bounce forward fashion, he worked his way from 76th at mile 40, to a top twenty and 17th overall at the biggest gravel race in the world in the most competitive field gravel racing has ever witnessed. 

But Dylan is far more than a bike racer. Dylan is also a YouTube sensation, with over 135 thousand followers and 12 million total views on his channel where he dives into the science of cycling, coaching, tech and gear. He’s also a successful and highly sought-after cycling coach, and co-host of not one, but two widely listened to podcasts (Bonk Bros and The Matchbox).

In this conversation, Dylan and I talk Crusher in the Tushar, the Life Time Grand Prix and explore topics like base training, elevation acclimation, over-training and mid-season breaks. We also explore identity on and off the bike and how Dylan keeps results in perspective.

Dylan is honest, real and vulnerable throughout this conversation. There’s no way to listen to this one and not be rooting hard for this this thoughtful, witty and humble human. 

Today’s guest is the Alaska raised, Harvard graduate and professional bike racer, Kristen Faulkner. Like so many of our guests, she has a unique and remarkable story.

Kristen entered her first professional race in Europe in 2020 and her meteoric rise in the fast and furious sport of road cycling shot her into the woman's world tour in a spectacular fashion. But before she became one of the fastest women in the pro peloton, racing the biggest road races in the world, she worked in the Silicon Valley as an investment associate and venture capitalist. 

In 2017, Kristen (a life-long athlete and collegiate rower) discovered the bike in New York City and immediately fell in love. One year after joining the pro peloton, she finished the Tour de Flanders with a top 10—just weeks after quitting her full-time day job. Kristen's racing highlights include strong results at the biggest road races in the world and she’s certainly a rider to watch (and cheer on) at this year’s Tour de France Femmes.

Kristen’s racing resume includes two stage wins and the Queen of the Mountain jersey at the Giro d’Italia Donne (including an opening Time Trial win to put her in the maglia rosa-the pink leaders jersey), a 2nd overall finish at the Tour de Suisse, a 3rd place overall finish at the inaugural Itzulia and more recently, an audacious ride at the Strade Bianchi where she went off the front and led the race solo until the end, taking 3rd overall that day. 

But like all guests on The Bounce Forward Podcast, Kristen is much more than an athlete and bike racer. She’s thoughtful, articulate and pragmatic, with a no-nonsense knack for sharing her inspiring story. In this episode we discuss her bold decision to pursue her passion—leaving her day-job to race bikes professionally overseas, her approach to training and building fitness and how she’s developed her technical skills, along with her analytical and tactical method to preparing for a big stage race. 

One conversation with Kristen and it’s clear that this is a mentally tough, self-aware and courageous human that will continue to bounce forward with a determined, gritty and a pensive mindset. 

Today’s guest is the one and only, Haley Smith. Haley is a professional mountain bike racer who hails from Canada and has represented her country on some of the biggest stages including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Haley is a regular on the UCI Women Elite Cross Country Mountain Bike World Cup circuit and in 2022, Haley explored for the first time, the gravel scene here in North America, dipping her toe in by competing in the inaugural Lifetime Grand Prix Series—where she walked away as the overall series winner, which included a staggering win at the Crusher In the Tushar, in Beaver, Utah. 

But Haley Smith, while perhaps best known for her exploits on the bike, is far more than a bike racer. In today’s episode, Haley and I will explore a number of different topics including her transition—not away from UCI World Cup Mountain Biking, which continues to be a major focus, but into long endurance events, including targets like the Marathon Mountain Bike National Championships in the Yukon and year two racing in the Life Time Grand Prix series. Her race calendar is bold and ambitious, balancing the explosive power needed for shorter XC racing at the highest level with some of the harshest endurance events on the planet like the Crusher in the Tushar, Leadville and Unbound. 

We’ll also explore topics such as sleep, social media, and why Haley believes that putting your identifying eggs in many different baskets makes you a stronger athlete and human. In this conversation we also dive into Haley’s grad school endeavor, where she’s pursuing her Master's in Sports Psychology and Haley sheds light on her work as a mental health advocate and openly shares her experience navigating an eating disorder as a professional athlete along with a recently diagnosed condition that will undoubtedly strike home for many. 

Courageous, strong, vulnerable and articulate, Haley is transparent and honest about her successes and challenges, on and off the bike, openly sharing her story, which includes her many wins and her struggles. Haley embodies what it looks like to be audacious and bounce forward and this is a human and conversation that’s sure to inspire. 

Hello and welcome to the freshest episode of The Bounce Forward Podcast. I’m your host, Michael Leach and today’s guest is the multilayered, multidimensional and colorful Carter Roy, who appeared on Law and Order last night. If you haven’t listened to Part One of this two-part episode, I’d highly encourage you to give it a listen.  

I hope you’re hooked by that opening and ready to take the deep dive, as listening to this man riff on the guitar gives me chicken skin every time. In part one we talk swimming, competition and life, and in part two, we’re going to take a deep dive into the life, work and psychology of Carter Roy. 

If you didn’t already fall in love with Carter after Part One of our discussion, I’m confident you will after Part Two. Carter is a beautiful human, a deep thinker and a true original, he’s truly one of one.  Articulate, thoughtful, wise and multi-talented. Carter’s truly a modern-day renaissance man. He’s an actor, artist, author, singer and song writer and he’s a wildly successful podcast host, the voice of six Spotify originals. 

Montana born and raised, Carter and I discuss his journey from the bright lights of New York City where he appeared on Broadway and theaters across the country, to his bold and audacious move to LA and his work on TV shows and movies. We open Part Two discussing just what happened to Paul Crik, a character Carter played and helped develop, one that turned him into an iconic YouTube sensation. We also dive into the deep end discussing Carter’s art with the paintbrush and his novels with the pen. 

We’ll explore topics like trust, faith, flowering endeavors and the trials and tribulations that come from rejection, when really putting oneself out there. In this episode, Carter shares what he’s learned from the heartache and challenges and how he’s found the courage to harness an inner confidence to keep showing up. We’ll discuss topics like flow state and what Carter’s creative process looks like. This episode is raw, real and vulnerable—typical of our show. 

I love this man and when I asked him to sing us out, he jumped on the acoustic and it’s worth the wait. 

I hope you enjoy the listen and as always, if you like what you hear, please share this with your friends and family and leave us a five-star review. And if you have any questions, you can contact me through my website at BeAudacious.com 

WNbL, mwl 

Today’s guest is the multilayered and multidimensional, Carter Roy. For a podcast showcasing freewheeling conversations diving deep into the psychology of the comeback—a show that emphasizes stories of endurance and perseverance, Carter may be the ultimate guest, as his story is the epitome of endurance and perseverance. 

Carter Roy is one of one, articulate, thoughtful, wise and multi-talented. Carter’s truly a modern-day renaissance man. He’s an actor, artist, author, singer and song writer and he’s a wildly successful podcast host, the voice of six Spotify originals. 

Montana born and raised, Carter’s appeared on Broadway, on the big screen, TV shows and theaters across the country, but he is perhaps best known for a role he played and helped develop, the iconic YouTube sensation, Paul Crik. More recently, Carter has taken his creative talents from the paintbrush to the pen, producing two novels, which we’ll learn more about in part two. 

In Part one, Michael and Carter have a lot of fun, taking a deep dive into mindset and mental performance, exploring Carter’s life and psychology as a competitive high school and collegiate swimmer. Raw, real, vulnerable and uplifting, Carter’s story, candor and unbridled enthusiasm for sports, art and life, is sure to inspire. 

We all face challenging circumstances such as loss, heartache and disappointment, but what if we could bounce forward from that experience to become our strongest and truest self. Today’s guest, Rose Grant truly is the epitome of what it looks like to do just that. Rose has demonstrated what it looks like to bounce forward with grit, grace, determination and courage. Rose is a 5x Mountain Bike Marathon National Champion and two-time Leadville 100 winner. She didn’t start her professional mountain biking career until she was nearing 30-years-old and not long after, she became a mom. Over the course of the last decade, she’s been one of the most prolific, dominant and successful North American endurance athletes on two wheels. 

In today’s conversation, Michael and Rose explore her dominant wins at Leadville, her first Unbound and what Rose’s mindset was throughout the inaugural Life Time Grand Prix series—where in her final season racing professionally, she took 4th in the overall, including a 2nd place finish at Leadville. Fresh off the announcement of her retirement from professional mountain bike racing, Rose is real, raw and vulnerable, sharing how she made the decision to retire while diving deep into stories of how she bounced back from multiple injuries (dislocated shoulder, torn ACL, broken fibula), derailing entire seasons, in order to become one of the most admired, accomplished and appreciated mountain bikers in the endurance field, all while being a dedicated mom and wife. Rose and Michael talk about her indoor training sessions as a Montana rider and what this first winter following her retirement has looked like, where Rose shares what she’s going to do with this next ‘season’ of her life. 

Articulate, thoughtful and full of wisdom, Rose doesn’t disappoint. For those looking for uplift and inspiration—this show’s mission—look no further, because Rose delivers in abundance. 

In this episode we dive even deeper with Gwendalyn Gibson. Gwendalyn is a professional mountain bike racer, riding for the distinguished Trek Factory Racing Team. She’s here to aspire and inspire. She’s thoughtfully working to become her strongest and truest self and she’s on a mission to make a difference in this world while lighting the world cup mountain bike scene on fire, and we’re really going to get to know Gwendalyn Gibson in part two of her story.

In part two of The Rise of Gwendalyn Gibson, she talks about the pressures of racing at the highest level of professional mountain biking, her goals for the 2023 season, and how much she’s targeting the Paris 2024 Olympics. Gwendalyn gets raw, real and vulnerable with Michael in part two as they discuss anxiety and how she manages the expectations and pressures of her race calendar—including how she navigates the highs and lows of racing and her personal life. Michael and Gwendalyn talk about rituals and routines and her tool kit for managing performance anxiety. From Gwendalyn’s slow mornings to her blue collared rise and how she bet on herself to get where she is right now, Michael and Gwendalyn talk about the power of purposeful passion and how to bounce forward with grit and grace. She’s openly sharing her journey and story in hopes of inspiring others to get through the hard times to chase their dreams. From pre-race pancakes to her gratitude for stability in her life (after tremendous uncertainty in 2022), from Nove Mesto to Switzerland, Gwendalyn shares with Michael what she’s looking forward to most in 2023 and beyond.

Gwendalyn Gibson is a professional mountain bike racer from Grand Junction, Colorado. She races for the Trek Factory Racing Team as an Elite World Cup Cross Country rider. She’s a 2x National Champion at Colorado Mesa University, she won Nationals in 2016 at Mammoth, California, she took a top ten at the Under 23 World Championships in 2021, and she burst onto the world stage having a breakout year in 2022. Her meteoric rise in 2022 allowed her to take the UCI Elite World Cup Cross Country Mountain Biking race scene by storm.

Gwendalyn is a young person who’s had tremendous success and in this conversation with Michael she gets vulnerable and real, sharing her early mountain bike story as a NICA rider in the Southern California League, her collegiate career and how she bet on herself, funding her last year as an Under 23 rider overseas through a hardworking, all-in and blue-collared approach on and off the bike. Gwendalyn also shares what it was like to learn that her longtime racing sponsor was closing shop, and how she grounded herself following an early season injury that threatened to derail her entire season—to bounce forward in search of her new team for 2023. Gwendalyn and Michael relive her historic win at Snowshoe in 2022, her breakout rides at Nove Mesto and Mont Sainte Anne and how she felt signing with one of the most respected and dominant teams in the world—Trek Factory Racing. Gwendalyn is a fighter whose depth, thoughtfulness and spirited personality shines in Part One of this two-part conversation.  Michael and Gwendalyn also dive into the art of visualization, mindset and the psychology of racing alongside the fastest women in the world. Gwendalyn is someone who really wants to inspire people and live a life that matters. 

Connor Fields is a three-time Olympian, two-time World Champion, a Pan American Games Gold Medalist, winner of the Red Bull Revolution and he’s the first American to win an Olympic BMX Gold medal.

He turned pro at age of 15 and at 17-years-old, Connor became the youngest rider to ever podium a BMX World Cup. Connor is celebrated in the BMX and cycling community at-large as one of the ALL-TIME greats to ever race on two wheels.

In the semi-finals at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, on the brink of battling it out for another Olympic podium, Connor went down in a terrible crash, sustaining a traumatic brain injury that would leave him fighting for his life in a Tokyo hospital.

Still fresh off the announcement of his retirement from professional racing, Connor shares stories from his historic career and we dive deep into the mindset that helped him go from “choking” at the London Olympics to “clutch” in Rio and beyond, which allowed him to become one of the most dominant BXM riders in the history of the sport. We discuss how he bounced forward from his traumatic brain injury, parenting young athletes, competing at the highest level, coaching, and Connor’s future as a presenter, broadcaster and entrepreneur.

Hi, I'm Michael Leach, dad, author speaker and coach. 

I've been talking about launching a podcast for a long time now—for many moons. The stars have aligned and I’ve been working around the clock, and the people I’ve been eager to sit down with for a conversation have jumped on board, ready and willing to make a contribution to the cause and I’m so excited to share their gold—to share their stories.

We’re calling this first episode, Episode 0, so consider this the official launch of The Bounce Forward Podcast. In this first episode, it’s just me, sharing a smorgasbord of what this podcast is about. At its heart, my plan is to provide long-form storytelling and discussion with people who inspire me. From athletes to artists, activists to adventurers, actors to authors, the one thing every guest will have in common is a shared vulnerability and willingness to embrace the struggle as they endure and persevere.

Every guest will embody stories of endurance and perseverance, and I’m confident that their stories will help us on our path to become our strongest and truest selves.

Right now, we’re a one man show and the learning curve has been steep. I’ve long wanted to launch a podcast, but the technical side of things have proven too overwhelming and intimidating—straight up daunting—to take the plunge. But I’ve often said, when we uncover the courage to go all-in on a project, the stars often align, and even though we’re still navigating some tech issues and I’m still learning how to edit audio (and video) and we’re working through the kinks of our remote recording and editing platforms (we’ve tried multiple platforms already), I’ve decided that instead of waiting until everything’s perfect, I’m going to just dive in, and begin this adventure.

Like I coach my daughter and athletes up on, instead of getting wrapped up in results, I’m going to focus on the process, and growing this podcast organically.

So, I hope you’ll be patient with me as I find my legs and gain a feel for the water as I’m very much a work in progress on every level as a podcaster, but I’m eager to show up and to bring you stories and episodes that uplift and inspire.

With so much noise out there telling us how to be, how to think, how to live, how to parent, how to train, it’s my hope that this podcast can help listeners redefine what success looks like (a deeply personal thing and matter of perspective), while combating the demons of self-doubt and fear that so often accompany athletic pursuits, creative endeavors, bold adventures and passion projects.

This is very much a Be Audacious project in line with my books, blog, and mission; it's for those bold enough to believe we can do hard things. It’s for those fighting to persevere and overcome life’s challenges with courage, character, grit and grace.

Ultimately, it’s my hope that this podcast can help you unlock your truest, strongest and most authentic self, so together, as a community, we can all become the best versions of ourselves.

I hope you ride this wave with me. It’s going to be a wild ride and I can’t wait to bring you our first two long-form episodes, because I think they’re pretty special.

With nothin’ but love, Michael W. Leach