It may be hard to believe but I was once a punk 20 year old kid with a pretty big disregard for my and others personal safety. I'd say that is common for that demographic but a bit out of character for me. Mtn biking in Northern California where I happened to be residing at the time is a very different style of riding. It is mountain biking. Aka you ride on mountains. East Coast style probably should be called woods riding or root and rock riding...but I digress. But back to my days as a punk and mtn biking in Marin County. The beauty of those mountains is that if you are funemployed and get to ride during the week it is a ghost town. You can shred the mountains at will and pretty much with impunity. Descending on a dirt bike on a switch backed fireroad at 25-30 mph is a lesson in faith and stupidity. I had a few close calls with ranger vehicles being parked in the middle of the trail or huge washed out rain ruts but never a "conflict" with another trail user.
Until I met Marylin Price. Marylin Price is an amazing woman. And she changed my life. But back to that meeting. I was shredding the fireroad descent into Muir Valley when I came across a blind corner and there was an older women pushing her bike in the middle of the trail. Luckily I was able to avoid hitting her and crashing myself and her out. But it was close. Like a hairs breath between my right shoulder and her helmet close. Well. Marylin lit into me. Yelling at me as I took the next turn. I was a jerk. No doubt I deserved every word she yelled at me. But instead of just blowing it off and being an even bigger jerk for some reason I stopped. I rode back up to her and apologized. She went from yelling at me to explaining to me in a very calm voice how precarious the trail access situation was in this area. She also invited me to come to lunch at her outreach organization called
Trips for Kids. I think that might have been my last act as a punk 20 year old. And its just one of the many examples of the Power of the Bike. It can transform you. And the connections you make change you and make you a better person.
I was never a philanthropic person. I was 24 after all. But one visit to Trips for Kids and I was sold. It became my own personal cause. If I had extra bike parts I'd donate them to TFK. I always made sure to donate some money to them at least once a year. Any chance that I had to help I did. If Marylin ever needed anything I tried to help. But back to the present. My good friends Adam Myerson and David Wilcox are very involved in
Bikes Not Bombs. I have helped with fundraising for BNB through the Ronde de Rosey the last couple of years. My babymomma even donated her old orange Stumpjumper to BNB. But I really didn't know much about the organization. I assumed it was very similar to TFK. But while it may be in some ways it is very, very different.
David and Adam were table captains at a fundraiser for BNB this week. Again I went mainly to support my two friends not out of any philanthropic ideal. I sort of expected it to be similar to that first lunch I had with Marylin Price about 2o years ago. Small scale downhome outreach. What I was a part of was totally not what I expected. There were at least 100-200 people in attendance at the breakfast held in Franklin Park. The NECX was well represented with three full tables. But we were only a small part of the participants. The other contingent were professional people and people clearly impassioned by the cause. The organization is much larger (and professional!) than I expected and its impact not only on the local community it serves but the global community is far greater than I anticipated.
They did such a great job of presenting what BNB core mission is and talking about the impact they have. There were so many highlights of the presentation. I wish I had been more journalistic about it and taped all that was said as it really had an impact on me. But two stories to me framed up the day. A young woman named Zacorah Jackman spoke to us about her personal experience at BNB. She is 18 and has been a part of BNB for a while. She will be the intern for BNB
Girls in Action Program this summer. I was sooo impressed not only by her ability to stand up at a podium and address a room full of people as I was by her story.
She told the story of how she came to BNB and about her mentor Elijah Rodriguez. He sounds like an amazing person. Like Trips for Kids they teach the kids bike safety, how to work on bikes and then the kids can earn a bike. She told the story of the day she finally earned her new bike with so much pride I almost shed a tear. The other things that hit home were what an impact BNB has on her community. In her own words she talked about how it helped her to learn about other people as she mainly only interacted with a small community within her neighborhood.
She also had the quote of the day. She said she sometimes "feels like a shark in a goldfish bowl." But now with BNB she feels like a shark in the ocean. She meant this as she now can see the possibilities. She is never bored, she loves to ride and work with other kids. She loves that BNB lets her be free and to grow. Its obviously such a nurturing and empowering environment. She loved that she could be herself and that she didn't have to conform. But she also said that she knew when one day she become a CEO or worked in business she might have to wear a suit. It was pretty amazing for an 18 year old to have that type of introspection.
On a more serious note Samantha Wechsler BNB's executive director told the story of a young man who was part of the program. He had been coming for about a week when they heard that his cousin had been killed in gun violence. They knew this would be a crisis for him. When he left that night Sam asked him to please not retaliate. He promised her he wouldn't. They worried about him obviously. When he came back they were all thrilled to see him. Sam asked him what happened. He said he and some of his friends went looking for who killed his cousin. But he left early. She asked him why did he go home. He said because he promised her he wouldn't retaliate. That is Power to change people's lives.
I came away from the breakfast so inspired and awed. Bikes Not Bombs is now going to be my cause. There are so many causes that need help and are important but this one is something special. I am so lucky to have friends like Adam and David who push you to be a better person and to be a bigger part of the community. And the beauty of those two is they don't beat you over the head with it or hop up on some soap box they just offer you an opportunity to open your heart and reach out. What a great morning. And to say I was impressed by the professionalism and warmth that I experienced from BNB would be an understatement.
And of course in the end it all comes back to the bike. Most of my good friends rode their bikes to the breakfast. I wanted to sooo bad but the timing was tight. But it was so cool to see Mo and David and Colin all on bikes. And as a bike geek I found myself checking out Mo's sweet commuter machine and Dave Chiu's basket bike. Hilarious when I am barely looking at resultsboys sick Spooky road racing machine to check out basket bikes! I also saw a huge group of Crack of Dawn riders heading back to the burbs through Jamaica Plain on my way home. Great day and again can't say how much it moved me.
This Broadway Bicycle School t-shirt makes people LOVE bikes. Seriously. It is now my new favorite t-shirt and is a bit of a litmus test about bikes in my mind. A 70 year old receptionist at my vet started chatting me up about it. Random Barista's, housewives, pizza men, everyone I bumped into had only good things to say about the t-shirt and about bikes. What does that say? It tells me two things. One: Its a rad design. Two: People respond to the Hippier side of bikes than the racier side of bikes. The women at the vet was proud to say the bike was invented in Springflield, Mass. And while I am not sure if that is true or not its amazing that she shared that info with me and had a positive conversation with me about bikes. The times they are a changing.
I have been doing some recon with a good friend lately for a super fun ride that is coming up in August. Put a big red star on August 20th....Cross bikes, dirt, trails, all the sick secret paths, Ronde 2.5 is going to be amazing. 65 miles give or take most of it on dirt. And not just fireroad some real gems. The trails have already been Christened with our flesh. Dorothy followed the Yellow Brick road you are going to want to follow the cockroach...stay tuned...
Boston has such a long history of bike fabrication. I had to move 3,000 miles away from this mecca of bike culture to find out just how rich New England is in bike builders. Bike building contrary to some people's mindsets is not a business. To be frank business has no place in bike building. To some extent obviously one has to be smart about these things. You can't not think about the bottom line entirely and you have to stay in business to continue to live the lifestyle and to pursue your craft. But building bikes should be more modern art meets the dark art of forging samurai swords for Ronin than a numbers crunching exercise in profitability. I have known a lot of framebuilders in my time. To me the great ones are a sort of modern day Hephaestus, the Greek god of smiths and fire. Its not a coincidence that many of them hail from Art Schools around the country. Some its a smooth transition from sculpture to bike building. For others they have a more design background. Either way having a passion and foundation for art makes for a solid base with which to hone ones craft in bike building. Again not to beat a dead horse but the kinds of welds that stop people in their tracks are made by artists. Just the same way we look at a brush stroke from a master in the halls of the best museums in the world.
So the next plan was to get Lucia to meet Tyler, Jamie and Kevin and have a tour of Firefly. She came up for the weekend and we met up on a Friday night. It was sooo much fun. The Firefly crew set up a nice mtn bike ride for us on Blue Hill. We rolled out with one of the wildest dudes I have ever met in my life! He was on a 29er single speed and just was non-stop. He showed us such an amazing loop that I seriously have to get back there at least once a week. Long story short we rolled from Firefly on z bikes, made our way over to the access road and then were in a wonderland of rolling fun trails with some crazy mixed in for good measure. Tyler saved Lucia from certain death at one point as her pedals got stuck and she rolled back down a steep up. The only thing keeping her spine and head from the roots and rocks was Tyler's front wheel. Ok maybe it wasn't an intentional save but hey it counts. What blew me away was that Lucia hadn't been on a mtn bike in 16 years! She was on a loaner with pedals that either wouldn't hold the cleats or kept her clipped in like a death trap. She rode just like I remembered from way back. Hard charging, no fear, take no prisoners. I rode pretty well for me. I suck as has been well documented. But what I am noticing is if I ride with a good crew and I follow their lines I can ride way better than by myself. So I was flowing pretty good. 
The cross field was the biggest category of the day with 50 riders. To deal with the surge of cross racers they split the field. Thankfully I was able to stay next to Billy Campbell, Nick, Andy, Mike Golay and the Threshold boys. We also had some serious Old man power on the front line courtesy of Mr Eric Carlson. He is basically the Clark Kent of bike racers. He seems so unassuming off the bike. On it? Holy shit. That man is gonna do some damage this cross season. We got the 30 seconds to go and the "GO!" off we went like a thundering herd down the jetway towards takeoff errr the holeshot. Have I mentioned all I have been doing riding-wise is endurance for the last 6 weeks?
My first mistake of the day was trying to stay on Billy's wheel. The speed was high but not totally unmanageable. We were all locked in in a 10 person paceline. Nick was right beside me, surfing up and down the group. At some point Eric, Billy and a few other riders put the hammer down and rode us off their wheels. We were now a chase group of about 8. Mark Suprenant who started a minute back joined us mid-way through the second lap. At this point I was starting to feel it. Legs were getting loaded up. I started to ride "smart." Usually I just get on the front nose in the wind and damn the torpedos. But I figured hey let's let some of these guys do the work. That is what Resultsboy would do. What could go wrong when you have 8 dudes on cx bikes flying down a fireroad with small rocks sticking up all over the place at 25-28 mph like it was tuesday night worlds? Apparently a lot. As the paceline worked through its rotation my spidey sense went from "attentive" to "eject" I just knew the rider at the front looked sketchy as hell. Not 5 seconds later it was like someone threw a hand grenade into our groupetto. KaBOOM!
Hup had a great crew consisting of Mike Golay, Markie Mark, Ctodd, DJ Roberto, myself and Rosey's doplanger Matt Aumiller. Matt rides on Cambridge and is one of the strongest and coolest guys I know. We transferred a large sum of money to his offshore account in the Cayman Islands for his team transfer for the day. Seeing him in Noir was worth every euro...in all seriousness it was so cool to have one of the nicest guys in the NECX riding with us. What better way to get to know someone than to spend all day suffering with them. The fact that he busted out hardcore rap tunes on the climbs made the suffering that much more bearable. 
We left Boston early on Friday and rolled out in the swaggervan from Brighton with Ctodd and Robert. Robert took the first shift and things got how do you say hectic. Damn I haven't seen grown men argue about directions like this in my life. At one point we were up on a median strip in Whackoff New Jersey playing semi-tractor trailer roulette trying to decide between north or south on 17...of course we picked the wrong ramp. It really was a harbinger for just how monumentally directionally challenged we would be for the rest of this trip. We made it down to the lovely Bear Mountain Resort in time for a nice opener ride. Did I mention my body was a disaster? Holy quacamole. Have I mentioned that the Lehigh Valley is really just one rolling hill after rolling hill? And not like Boston rolling hills. Boston has no hills as I was about to find out. We rolled out of the resort and just flew down a descent. We rode for about 30 minutes then started back to the hotel. Half way up the climb Ctodd gets a flat. Ok no biggie. I do my usual quick change with a CO2 for him. But I am so spooked by being on the side of a road with no shoulder and all of us exposed as trucks and cars fly by us at like 60 that I rush it and something slips into the bead and flats the new tube within seconds. Literally. I inflate it give it to Ctodd and it starts deflating. FML.
When we got back to the hotel we got a call from the Rapha guys and Bill Strickland of Bicycling magazine inviting us down to happy hour in town. We didn't really know where we were going but when I saw a bike shop with a super sexy black Ira Ryan in front of it I knew we were in the right spot. We went in and met Bill and his wife Beth who had laid out the route for Rapha. The whole staff at Rapha and Bicycling deserve such high praise for how welcomed we all felt and how at ease they made us. Even though we'd really never met each other before they made us all feel like we'd been friends forever. I think that is what the RGR brings out in cyclists. Its like a shared history. They were so excited to show us the roads and the area that they get to ride every day it just became infectious. Even when Gerben was telling us how hard it was you couldn't help just feeling relaxed about it. Well maybe we didn't believe it could be as bad as he said it was...
We went out to dinner afterwards with Hup OG and international photographer Chris Milliman. I love Chris. It was so good to see him and to be able to take the time to talk with him and catch up. Usually we see each other at Gloucester. Talk about the sickest new Dugast tubies then we have to race off to get to the start grid and maybe share a quick beer post race. We talked a lot about cross (of course) and Flanders. 
I have to say traveling with the crew we had was so great. Matt Aumiller rolled in around 12:30 and we discussed what badass Cat 2s we all were. Not Cat 2 in the USCF sense Cat 2 as in Cats with 2 kids...I went to bed praying to the baby jeezus in the gold lame diaper that he heal my broken body so I could bring Hup glory instead of crawl up into the fetal position on the first climb and be abandoned and have my bones devoured by the zombie hordes of the apocalypse. Race day as we got the 5 minutes to the start at the line Mike Golay flashed me his Garmin. It said take a U-turn. I had no idea what foreshadowing that was. We made one correct turn. Well two correct turns then I proceeded to lead us out onto an onramp to the highway. You can't make this up. We turn around and go back down the onramp. Again we somehow do not get killed by oncoming traffic due in no part to our superior cycling skills. We get back on course and get onto a really nice gravel road across a huge field. I have Wagner's Ride of The Valkyries in my head...and choppers. You can't pretend you are in Paris-Roubaix without the choppers. 
The first 40 miles were probably the most brutal 40 miles I have ever done. Between my body just not being right to the course profile it just made for a sufferfest. But we got some great words of advice from the Godfather the night before we left. ZD (Zac Daab) said to use the word "less" as a mantra. And we really embraced it as it was brilliant in its simplicity and genius. I took it easy. Which was no easy task consider the 4 "bumps" on the elevation in that first 40. One hill called Goat Hill was brutal. It was dirt/gravel and possibly the steepest thing I have ever seen. I got about 3/4 up and was just like what am I doing. I have a 100 more miles and I am about to rip my knees out of my sockets trying to hump up this wall. So I got off. Yes I did. Quick hike a bike and I remounted and joined my mates. After that the good sensations came around. We made it to the first (and last until mile 90) stop for water and refueling. And this is where things came apart. There were a ton of teams at a quikie mart. We socialized a bit. Grabbed some food and water. Then we did a quick head count and we were missing a rider. What happens on the road stays on the road. It was just a communication mix up and a necessary search for a suitable nature break gone bad but we watched all the other teams leave us behind while we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally I went up the road and got a real PB&J sandwich from quite possibly the nicest British women at a coffee shop I have ever met. Finally the Rapture released our sixth rider of the Hupocalypse from its clutches and we were back on our way. Rumor is that The Wilcox returning to racing stopped the Rapture in its tracks. You can thank him for saving the Universe next time you see him ; )
