This week’s 10 Tracks features Alex Maltese, founder of Fort Collins Gravel People group ride/movement/community. Alex has called Fort Collins home for the past 5.5 years after relocating from Wheeling, West by God Virginia. He works as a Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Workstand and spends much of his free time riding gravel and mountain bikes around Northern Colorado. I also have it on good authority that he spends a fair amount of time, and probably money, working on his 2012 Porsche Cayenne Turbo.
Alex says he has music playing almost all the time, except when he’s riding. “I’m a big ol’ Safety Boi,” he says, explaining that the steady sounds of cycling are enough to keep his ADHD in check. His favorite bike is an old Fuji Tread that started life as a gravel bike but has since been transformed into a flat bar townie with plenty of bags for running errands. He says he’s on it 90 percent of the time because it means he doesn’t have to use a car. While mountain biking is his favorite style of riding, he spends most of his time on a gravel bike, and his favorite ride is the Tuesday night Fort Collins Gravel People ride between April and October, though he also values the occasional solo ride. His coffee preference is simple: “Injected directly into my veins.” Alex credits older friends and cousins for shaping his taste in music, introducing him to bands like Blind Melon, Gin Blossoms, the Flaming Lips, and Fugazi while he was growing up. That early influence still shows in the mix of artists that made this week’s playlist. Dig it.
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