Meet Zach Ostrander | President – Summit Cycle Solutions Inc.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Zach Ostrander and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Zach, how do you think about risk?
Risk is unavoidable. There is no such thing as a risk-free environment. If you’re an employee your risk is simply different. You can be fired at any time due to circumstances, performance, or general politics. If you’re a business owner your risk is less acute, but significantly more financially devastating. We all get to choose our category of risk.

In the United States we often have the luxury of determining our risk tolerances. I’m forever grateful for that, and I don’t take it for granted. For me risk is simply a calculation of knowns, and unknowns. Once enough data points have been collected you act on faith, and execute.

In a past career I traveled the world building terrain parks at ski resorts, and executing events in high risk mountain environments. I once developed an equation using Hydro dynamics to determine the speed at which a skier could hit a terrain park jump. The multiple data points, in association with unknowns gave us the “calculated risk”. We may have been the biggest nerds in snowboarding. The point is that every problem has a solution, sometimes we just have to calculate the risk until we find “said” solution.

What should our readers know about your business?
Summit Cycle Solutions manages event logistics for large scale cycling tours (Triple Bypass, Ride The Rockies, Cycle N.C).

We have the best community, employees, and customers on the planet. The pandemic was probably the most difficult professional challenge we’ve ever faced. The challenge of putting our company on life-support for 18 months produced overwhelming emotion.

People talk about all the negative aspects of the last two years, and while they’ve been hard, we’ve also received some amazing support from this community. Other business have offered to pay our salaries, customers have given us their registrations with no string attached, and we’ve had more advice then we can shake a stick at. Advice that did not fall on deaf ears.

We overcame all of these challenges through community, and love for one another. Our brand is our story. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t much better than getting to see thousands of cyclists conquer a mountain pass…but that is what we do, not who we are.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oh man, the places we can go!

First, we would start the day with a Red Buffalo coffee (shout out Erin Young / team). Next, we would catch some early laps at the Woodward Terrain Park before finishing up at Outer Range. If it’s spring time, we might be lucky enough to grab a quick MTB lap on the dinner loop trail.

Rinse & repeat each day.

PS. I’ll be honest that I’ve got slight reputation for “breaking my friends off” under the above itinerary. Listen, let’s just review point one (risk assessment), then come back to this. 😉

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
OK, are you ready to get weird?

If I don’t have your attention yet, what I’m about to write will absolutely get it.

In summer of 2016 the guy that married my wife and I had emergency brain surgery. He called to tell me he had a dream. Touchy-feely, and weird yeah? Even stranger was what he described in multiple communications came to fruition. It came to fruition 100%. Not like oh some weird coincidence.

To make a long story short it involved the birth of our daughter, losing my job (thanks corporate a** kick), and starting a company with nothing more than a made-up name in a coffee shop.

This company is a God story. That’s where the credit goes.

Website: https://summitcyclesolutions.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zach-ostrander-1734834b/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqSDWcYYFmDdXxKqHrnJHLA