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To be honest with you, I'm not sure how to start this podcast. This was a project that Richard and I were supposed to work on together.

Richard had this ambitious idea of riding his bike from Triesta to Budapest for the start of the Giro. Collecting interviews and stories along the way.

I was supposed to serve as a kind of cultural liaison, supplying what I was researching on Slovenian history and culture.

We were supposed to see each other in Loviana. He was supposed to be the one to finally crack the ice of Srimon Šbilek, the Slovenian master of the Swiss races, which no other journalist has and probably never could ever do.

After Richard was gone, not long before we were supposed to meet, this vacuum opened up in so many ways.

I still remain pretty sad that Richard couldn't set his narrative and journalistic eye on Slovenia and on its rich literature and art and on the terrain of its valleys and hills.

I didn't have much time to plan anything nearly on the scale of what Richard was planning and his shoes are impossible for me to fill.

I've never even made a podcast before. Richard was the one who did all the work.

When the cycling podcast told me I could still do this project, it became for me something I did for and in the memory of Richard, who I miss immensely.

To travel in a country alone is a certain pleasure, but to travel with a friend is a pleasure unmatched.

I only had a week or two, even though in a while I was still grieving to prepare this massive thing. I pulled out every connection I had in order to make the best podcast possible.

Not having a car or license or the fitness to ride across the country like Richard, most of my work is centered around the Viana.

Richard used to call me the Ruglich Whisperer, which I always thought was a little weird and I didn't like it.

But now, you know, it's like kind of take it that nickname and stride and it kind of makes me laugh and smile.

And I managed to find, I think my biggest highest here is that I managed to find 15 minutes in person, one-on-one with Ruglich on some pretty short notice.

And I also got to visit with Matei Mahorecch at his race named after him.

And I met Yani Brakavitch in a suburban McDonald's and slowly, yeah, a program emerged the past to the present and future of cycling in Slovenia.

In a single week, I went to two races for juniors to see behind the scenes just how popular cycling is in Slovenia and to meet some of its newest practitioners.

I traveled with Pogi team to Italy and got race reports from the Dei Pogacar's prodigies.

I met with current stars, journalists who have been covering the sport since the 90s, historians, ex-professionals from the earliest days of an independent Slovenia and more.

I pulled out all the stops as quickly as I could and when I came back to America, I was less with more questions that I came back to Slovenia to answer.

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