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Feb 18, 2021

Meet Marc, Purveyor of Vegan Pizza

Master Pro Mechanic Egil Nilsson and CAT 1 Gastronome taste tests Marc's vegan pizzas from Local Vegan Pizza Company. The first in a series. Did you know this man once trained peregrine falcons?

1. So you joined us in anticipation of the 2020 season which ... you know.. so let's skip back a page and have you tell us all about you.

I’m from Emmaus Pennsylvania. I've got a beautiful daughter named November. She is 6 years old and she’s my biggest fan. I bought my first bike in the winter of 2012-2013. Over the next few years I’d ride through spring and fall then hang the bike up and play ice hockey in the winter. I had a bad shoulder dislocation that prevented me from playing in 2017. In 2017 I started taking cycling seriously. I quit smoking cigarettes and started training and....here we are. Racing on a team with the coolest dudes ever met.

2. So given a lost racing season where are you with bike racing and what objectives do you have in front of you as we rejoin racing in 2021?


I’m not sure how 2021 is going to play out. Racing is expected in the summer but it seems like everything is still up in the air with restriction and guidelines. I did a few individual time trials last season and had some good results so I’m expecting there to be more events along those lines this year.

3. Two words and punctuation: Track Racing?


Definitely interested. I was planning on getting into it last season but it didn’t really happen. I got out on the track once to try it out and I raced one 4K time trial. It was very fun and very painful. Excited to give it a go!

4. What do you know about Penny Farthing racing to this point? Are you as confused about it as I am?


I’m very confused about it. I think it’s pretty neat though. I like that it’s still a thing and hasn’t been lost to history like so many other things. I’m pretty excited to see what Bike Works does with the bikes they’ve been building.

5. What kinds of things have you been doing during this enforced off-season to try to maintain, or build fitness towards racing?


I was doing a lot of training up until September but then I realized there wasn’t going to be any racing at all in the fall and training kinda fell to the back-burner. I’m back on track now though. Lots of indoor sessions as it’s been very cold outside.

6. Our tentative USA Cycling roster shows a Joey Kubushefski licensed to Bike Works p/b Fred Beans Cycling. What can we anticipate there?


You can anticipate a very strong rider. He’s fast. Very fast. He’s actually my twin brother. We both got into cycling at the same time. I just started racing a year before he did. Oddly enough we have the exact same shoulder injury preventing us from playing hockey.

7. Little bike/sponsor love: You've had a team Giant TCR in your quiver through the year. Tell us about your experience on the bike?


I love it. It’s snappy and handles really well. It’s gotta be one of the best bikes out there. It’s the complete package. Giant really nailed it with this bike. A full carbon bike withe carbon wheels, tubeless tires and a power meter out of the box for $3500 is literally unreal. I wasn’t expecting a team bike when I joined so that was a complete surprise.

8. Can you tell us a little about your diet, as well as your experiences and tips for some of the younger racers in our program as well as some of us. .. more mature riders?


I’ve been meat free for 5 years now. I dropped dairy 3 years and became vegan. It’s hard to support was goes on in that industry. In the area I do most of my riding there is a lot of dairy farms and it’s really sad to see these animals every day that are bred for slaughter or forced into endless pregnancy to keep producing milk. I just decided I don’t want to support that and it turns out that the diet seems to make me recover a lot faster. I don’t have many days with tired legs. Doctors always seem impressed with my cholesterol and bloodwork so I think it’s working well for me. If anyone ever what advice on ditching meat and dairy I’d love to talk to them about it.

9. So, thanks to you we. have two pizzas from The Local Plant Based Pizza Company in the shop fridge which we'll be sampling this week. Tell us about this endeavor and where others can find you to learn more about it?


I’m a pizza addict. It’s my favorite food. Pizza obviously has dairy on it so when I went play based it was like impossible to just go out and just pick up a pizza so I started making it on my own. A few friends had it liked it and were pushing me to try and open a pizza shop but that's easier said then done. My brother-in-law said I should make a some kind of social media for the pizza to gauge interest in it. So that’s what I did and people started to hear about it from their friends and then their friends starting hearing about it kinda started growing. People seem to like it a lot. I’ve got a few people that order every week. Some people order in bulk and have a stock pile in their freezer. It’s cool that people are into it.

10. What are we missing here. What else do we need to know if we want to follow your training, racing, pizza endeavors .. you know whatever?


I have a personal Instagram where I post cute pictures of my kid and some bike stuff here and there. It’s @burritosburrito My pizza account is @thelocalveganpizzaco that is were I deal with ordering and all that good stuff.

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