Some of this is taken from my RBR forum on the SCOTT Speedster S30. I wrote while passing the time waiting for the bike to be repaired. If you check out that thread, you'll see that I'm still waiting. But that is another story for another day:
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It seems like I have always had a bike of some kind. My earliest childhood memories include riding in the driveway on a fall afternoon in Virginia, dodging the falling leaves. I remember pretending the leaves were bombs and even the slightest contact would mean instant death.
By the early 80s, the family had moved to the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Behind our house was a park. Beyond the park was the first BMX track I had ever seen. Afternoons and weekends were spent watching guys dressed like astronauts, doing things on bicycles that seemed to defy the laws of physics. And the language...the lingo:
endos, berms, whoop-dee-doos, tabletops, gnarly, rad, Redline, Diamondback, Kuahara, Mongoose. If you know, you know. If you don't, I don't think there is any way I could adequately explain.
I was never quite one of them, though...I was a wannabe...always a little too afraid to hit that tabletop at full speed and just lay out. I saved and scraped allowance and birthday money and bought a red Puch from an LBS called the Bike Rack that my brother worked at part time before he got "too old" for bicycles and developed a love for motorcycles. I put a race plate on the bars with the number 32 on it. My favorite number for reasons I can't explain even to this day. I didn't race though. I couldn't afford the other accoutrements required (helmet, gloves, knee pads, elbow pads, etc.) But it was 1980, I had a $200 red Puch (rhymes with "book"), the Steelers had Bradshaw and Swann, Franco Harris and Mean Joe Greene and all was pretty much right with the world.
By the mid-late 80s we were in rural Missouri. The folks had bought a farm and I went from suburban punk to transplanted farm kid. I remember watching reruns of Green Acres as a kid, but never figured myself as the Zsa Zsa type. By then, I had outgrown the Puch. Little did I know that a few years later, it would be cool to be an adult riding a kids bike. I was riding a hand-me-down Schwinn cruiser that my brother had built during his time at the Bike Rack. It was a 5 speed with a bar end "pinky" shifter. The best part, though, was the rear wheel, where my brother had laced a motorcycle hub with a functioning drum brake. The bike must have weighed 45 lbs. but it would stop on a dime
. Riding then became about basic transportation. We lived 5 miles outside of town and a good mile from our nearest neighbor. If I wanted to go anywhere, and I usually did, it was by bike. Once I turned 16 I got my first car. A 1973 Mercury Capri. It spent more time on blocks than it ever did on the road. But the Schwinn was always there.
It was on that bike that I had my first and only experience riding while drunk. I was 17 years old, and coming home from a kegger. I had taken the bike into town, caught a ride to the party with a friend, drank far, far too much Schaeffers, and was dropped off back in town. Trying to ride home on a hot, humid summer night, I remember distinctly suddenly feeling a sensation like I was floating...only to realize once I hit the ground that I wasn't floating...I was falling. I got up, chuckled, and got back on the bike, only to do it again...and again. That ride culminated with me throwing up on a Missouri State Trooper. He pulled me over for weaving recklessly on the road. I remember his flashlight in my eyes and hearing him ask me if I had been drinking. I tried to say "No, officer" but couldn't get the words out before I ralphed all over him. After it happened, there was this stunned moment of silence. He turned around and I thought my adolescent life was over. With his back to me, he asked me how far away I lived. I told him I was about a half mile from home. He said he was going to turn around, and when he did, I better not be there. I wasn't. To this day, I don't know why he didn't ticket me or arrest me, but thank you, kind sir, wherever you are.
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In college, bicycles continued to be all about transportation. I was lucky enough to always live off campus and commuted to and from classes. By the time I started my post-grad work I was married and had a son and we were living in Lincoln, NE. It was there, in the mid 90's that I really started to ride recreationally for the first time. Lincoln is a pretty nice biking town with both paved and well maintained gravel/cinder trails. I had a few professors who were in to biking and organized occasional weekend rides. A nice 20+ mile ride out to this little town whose name escapes me. There, we would fill up on pancakes at the local diner before the ride back home. I started out still riding the Schwinn, which garnered more than a few laughs from the serious riders in the group. Bowing to peer pressure, as well as my inability to keep up on the Schwinn, I got rid of the cruiser (a move I regret to this day) and purchased a Trek 7000 mountain bike in 1996. It had a purple ZX aluminum frame that was bonded rather than welded. The difference was like night and day. Multiple chain rings. Faster. Lighter. I rode that bike everywhere.
My first job after finishing grad school brought me to Iowa. Here I continued to ride for recreation as well as transportation. Working up to longer and longer rides, now almost exclusively on paved roads and MUTs, I tried putting slicks on the Trek, and though it helped, I could never get the kind of speed or endurance out of my riding that I was looking for. I attempted a 60+ miler once in the July heat and humidity that nearly ended in heat stroke. I ended up selling the 7000 on eBay to pay for an XBOX 360 for our son for Christmas. By the following year, I had worked up the courage (and saved up the money) to take the plunge and give a true road bike a try. Frankly, I had always been a little intimidated by road bikes. Something about my Clydesdale body on those skinny little tires just seemed like a recipe for disaster. The Trek Pilot 1.0 I bought in 2006 changed my mind. The 28cm tires didn't feel too skinny. The upright geometry and the extra set of brake levers on the bars made the transition from the mountain bike pretty painless. That was 3 years and a little over 4000 miles ago. I still have that bike and am in the process of converting it into a full-time commuter bike.
Before I go too much further, I should mention another, more tangential connection to cycling. My doctoral dissertation was on the life and writing of a man named Steve Tesich. Tesich and his family emigrated from the former Yugoslavia and he went on to have a successful writing career as a playwright and novelist before passing away from a heart attack in 1996. His greatest claim to fame, however, was as the writer of the screenplay for the movie Breaking Away for which he won an Academy Award in 1979. For those of you familiar with the movie, it is based in part on Tesich's own experience living in Indiana. He was an avid cyclist and raced in the Little 500 race depicted in the movie. Tesich also wrote the screenplay for American Flyers. I didn't decide to write about Tesich specifically because of his interest in cycling, but it's odd how the universe works, sometimes.
After purchasing the Trek in 2006, I decided to try riding RAGBRAI. The name is an acronym for the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa and is a yearly Iowa tradition. Each year, in the third week in July approximately 10,000 registered riders and an unknown number of "bandit" riders spend the week riding from one side of the state to the other.
For those who have never participated in a really large group ride, it's difficult to explain what the experience is like. Imagine canoeing along a river of 10,000 cyclists of all shapes and sizes: professional racers, to little old ladies, to kids, to Clydesdales like me, riding all manner of bikes: bmx, mountain, road, tandem, bent, homemade one of a kinds. People wearing the latest high-tech race-wear. People wearing costumes. People wearing little of anything at all.
I say it's like canoeing because from the moment you start on the road each morning until the moment you pull in to the stopover town for the night, you are continually surrounded by and in the company of other riders. At any point you can look behind you or up the road and see what appears to be a never-ending stream of fellow cyclists. It's simultaneously overwhelming and humbling. Each day's ride usually runs between 45 and 75 miles with small towns generally spaced every 10-20 miles. Each little town is like a small celebration of music and food and hospitality. Each of the larger stop-over towns is a bit like a county fair.
I was nervous about RAGBRAI. Up to then, the longest single ride I had ever done was my 60+ mile misadventure on the Trek 7000. I started preparing as soon as I got the Pilot in September, putting in as many miles as possible that fall. When the weather was too cold, I rode a stationary bike in the basement. In the spring, I was back out on the trails and roads again. By the time July 2007 rolled around, I thought I was ready. As it turned out, I was ready...for the first day. The first days ride sailed by with no problems. I didn't realize at the time that I was running on adrenaline and the excitement of the first day. I didn't eat properly. I didn't drink properly. The second day was a little slice of Hell. Because I didn't take on enough fluids (both after day 1 and during day 2), by the time I pulled in to the stop-over town at the end of day 2, my muscles were cramping so badly I literally couldn't get off the bike. I had to pull to a stop, put my feet down, and stand there for 20 minutes before the charley-horses subsided enough for me to swing my leg over to get off the bike. I learned that evening to drink early and drink often. I learned to drink until I "peed clear". To be honest, though, I seriously considered abandoning the ride at the end of day 2. I decided to start day 3 and see what happened. Fully hydrated, though, I managed to finish day 3 and the rest of the week. Each day after that got progressively better. Coming in to the river valley at Bellevue at the end of the ride was an enormous downhill. I tucked in (as much as a Clydesdale "tucks") and started down. I took my eyes off the road just long enough to glance at the Cateye. I was doing 53mph and the only thought that kept running through my mind was "no turtle...no turtle...no turtle..." It's still the fastest I have ever traveled on a bicycle.
If you've never rode RAGBRAI, you should. It's an amazing experience. Where else can you ride 500 miles in a week and manage to gain 5 pounds
