Ever wonder what's it's like to strap your kid to an Xtracycle and bring them along for one of the more scenic tours in the San Francisco Bay Area? On this episiode, veteran podcaster and tech reporter Cyrus Farivar shares his experience bringing his daughter on a tour from the East Bay to Half Moon Bay on his trusty ride. Xtracycle touring—it's a thing!

Housekeeping

Hey, event-cancelling-virus-willing, I'm presenting at the National Bike Summit's Active Transportation Leadership Retreat March 14th. National Bike Summit is the biggest collection of bike advocates and it happens in DC. This will be the first time I'm lawyering it up in the bike advocacy space, so it's going to be fun.

Fellow Star Wars nerds! I have the Disney audio but need some time to distill it. Look for that in March.

The Missing Link bike tour

Hey, tour-cancelling-virus-willing, I'll be flying to southern California with my Brompton to ride the one piece of the California coast I missed in my 2014 tour! Possible meetup opportunity in San Diego - it would be a Friday night 3/27 probably in the Gaslamp area. If you're interested check out the details at pedalshift.net/sandiego and give me a heads up so I can be in touch. Not a late night because this guy has a stupid early train!

The Interview: Cyrus Farivar on Xtracycle Touring with Kids

Cyrus [“suh-ROOS”] is an investigative tech reporter at NBC News in San Francisco.

In addition to being a radio producer and author, Cyrus was most recently a senior tech policy reporter at Ars Technica. He was also previously the sci-tech editor and host of “Spectrum” at Deutsche Welle English, Germany’s international broadcaster, from 2010-2012.

Cyrus is the author of multiple books, including Habeas Data (2018) and The Internet of Elsewhere (2011). Praised by The New Yorker, among others, Habeas Data takes a look at legal cases that have had an outsized impact on surveillance law in America. His first book focuses on the history and effects of the Internet on different countries around the world.

In 2019, Cyrus and Olivia Solon won the Technology Reporting award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter for their coverage of Silicon Valley, including reporting on privacy, facial recognition, and more.

Two years earlier, Cyrus and Joe Mullin also won the Technology Reporting award from SPJ NorCal for their August 2016 story: “Stealing bitcoins with badges: How Silk Road’s dirty cops got caught.”

Cyrus has also reported for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio, Public Radio International, The Economist, Wired, The New York Times, Slate, and many others.

He received his B.A. in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

He lives in Oakland, California.

Twitter: @cfarivar

Pedalshift Society

As always we like to close out the show with a special shoutout to the Pedalshift Society! Because of support from listeners like you, Pedalshift is a weekly bicycle touring podcast with a global community, expanding into live shows and covering new tours like The Kessel Run and The Missing Link bike tours! If you like what you hear, you can support the show for 5 bucks, 2 bucks or even a buck a month. And there’s one-shot and annual options if you’re not into the small monthly thing. Check it all out at pedalshift.net/society.

Kimberly Wilson Caleb Jenkinson Cameron Lien Andrew MacGregor Michael Hart Keith Nagel Brock Dittus Thomas Skadow Marco Lo Terrance Manson Harry Telgadas Chris Barron Mark Van Raam Brad Hipwell Stuart Buchan Mr. T Nathan Poulton Stephen Dickerson Vince LoGreco Cody Floerchinger Tom Benenati Greg Braithwaite Sandy Pizzio Jeff Muster Seth Pollack Joseph Quinn Drue Porter Byron Paterson Joachim Raber Ray Jackson Jeff Frey Kenny Mikey Lisa Hart John Denkler Steve Hankel Miguel Quinones Alejandro Avilés-Reyes Keith Spangler Greg Towner Dan Gebhart Jody Dzuranin Lucas Barwick Michael Baker Brian Bechtol Reinhart Bigl Greg Middlemis Connie Moore William Gothmann Brian Benton Joan Churchill Mike Bender Rick Weinberg Billy Crafton Gary Matushak Greg L’Etoile-Lopes James Sloan Jonathan Dillard John Funk Tom Bilcze Ronald Piroli Dave Roll Brian Hafner Misha LeBlanc Ari Messinger David Gratke Todd Groesbeck Wally Estrella Sue Reinert John Leko Stephen Granata Phillip Mueller Kevan Olhausen Robert Lackey Dominic Carol Jacqi McCulloch John Hickman

Folks, it's Jason Kent

You've been hearing about Jason Kent and his music for many fine episodes. Sunfields' latest album may be their best yet. Go get it. Stream it too.

https://soundcloud.com/sunfields