Picked up a link from Joe Lindsey over at the Boulder Report yesterday.

I met Joe a couple of times back in 1995 or 1996, when I interviewed for an associate editor gig at the old Bicycle Guide magazine. Grant Petersen, at Rivendell Bicycle Works (for whom I was the web guy at the time), helped out with an introduction to Garrett Lai, who was the senior editor at the time. Part of the interview process was a ride up the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu from Santa Monica with Garrett and Joe.

The other candidate, to whom the job eventually was offered, was Patrick Brady (of the now-defunct Asphalt Magazine). Never got the chance to meet Patrick, though.

I’ve always had a lot of respect for both Joe’s and Patrick’s writing … BG certainly made the right choice hiring Patrick instead of me. But sometimes I still wonder, “what if” …

This article, in its original form, appeared in the final edition of the Bridgestone Owner’s Bunch (BOB) Gazette, in 1994.

What is the most frustrating thing that can happen to a cyclist?

I think one of them is being forced to walk. One weekend, late in the summer of 1994, I had that experience.

Since my weekly mileage had been rather low, I felt the need to push myself, and went on an 80-miler. I left my Nob Hill apartment about noon, made my usual stops at Il Fornaio on Union Street for paninis and at City Cycle (across the street) for Gu while on my way to and through the Presidio to the Golden Gate Bridge. From north end of the Bridge, I dropped into Sausalito and rode through Mill Valley, then climbed Camino Alto to drop into Corte Madera.

By then, the weather had warmed due to the Bay Area’s lovely microclimates, so I took off my arm and leg warmers and stuffed them into a jersey pocket.

I worked my way through Fairfax, around Nicasio Reservoir, through Samuel P. Taylor State Park, and several small towns you haven’t heard of unless you live in the Bay Area, and eventually reached what is locally called the Paradise Loop, around the peninsula that forms Tiburon.

That day, Paradise proved to be anything but. It was almost 6 o’clock, and the fog was starting to roll back in, so I reached back and discovered that my my arm and leg warmers had disappeared.

“Not a problem,” I thought. “It’s a short loop. I’ll finish before it gets really cold.”

Climbing the first short hill on Paradise Drive, I began to hear a “tick-tick-tick” noise coming from my rear wheel. After stopping and looking vainly for the source, I hopped back on my bike and continued on. A few miles later, I was riding a flat.

“Still not a problem,” I thought. I whipped out my spare tube, wrestled off the tire and replaced the tube, and off I rode, discarding my old tube. A mile or so later, I had another flat.

I know, I know … it’s never a good idea to discard a punctured tube, especially not mid-ride. And no, I didn’t just toss it on the side of the road … I threw it away in one of the garbage cans at the end of a driveway.

“This could be a problem,” I thought. I remove the wheel, wrestled with the tire again, and removed the tube. I had forgotten one of the cardinal rules of flat repair and didn’t check my tire for sharp objects. This time, I found a wire embedded so deep that I had penetrated the tube twice. The “tick-tick-tick” noise was the wire hitting the brake calipers as the wheel turned.

I patched both holes, replaced the tube, and off I rode.

Psssssshhhhh…

“This is definitely a problem,” I thought. Again I removed the wheel, wrestled with the tire, and removed the tube. This time I was looking at a valve stem partially torn away from the tube. I was 20 miles from home, with no spare tube and a useless patch kit, and I was at least 5 miles from payphone (this was in 1994, before the now-ubiquitous cell phone).

I took off my shoes and socks and started walking.

Mmmmm … barefoot walking on asphalt, when it’s in the 60s and temperatures dropping by the minute. FUN!

Around 7 o’clock, it got foggy and windy. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, after several people passed without a second glance-even a few riding (gasp!) Bridgestones-a guy on a titanium wonderbike (again, still a relative rarity back then) rolled by and asked if I needed help.

“Yeah! Gotta spare tube?” I shouted back.

“No patch kit?” he asked. So I told him what happened.

“Hmmm,” he replied. “I only have spare sew-ups. In a pinch you can stretch one on a clincher rim, as long as you’re careful cornering. Want to try it?”

At that point, I would have tried a mountain bike tire and a Band-Aid if there was a chance it would get me home. He gave me a brand-new Vittoria CX, which we stretched over the rim. Sure enough, it worked, and off I rode.

While heading up the other side of the Tiburon Peninsula on my way back towards Mill Valley, my saviour passed me going the other direction, turned around, and joined me.

“How’s it holding up?” he asked.

“Pretty well, so far,” I replied, so we continued to ride and chat for a while. I promised to send the tire back to him, and eventually we went our separate ways.

At this point, I had been out for about eight hours, had three flats, and had lost a layer of clothing. The Bay’s famous fog and winds were out in full force, and I couldn’t face the climb back up to (and then the ride across) the Bridge; luckily, I still had time to catch the last ferry from Sausalito back into the City, and made it home without further incident.

Who was my benefactor? His name was Chris Cameron, then an advertising director for Mountain Bike magazine.

Sure hope he doesn’t mind having his name put out there, some 13 years after the original incident; and I wonder what he’s up to these days. Still riding, I hope.

I’ve always felt that BOBness is an attitude, not limited to cyclists, and is definitely not acquired just by joining the Bridgestone Owner’s Bunch or becoming a member of Rivendell Cycle Works.

To me, a BOB is a person who understand there are more important things about cycling than just the latest equipment (or the rejection of same) and training times.

Cycling is not about racing; it’s not about how quickly you can climb your local mountain; it’s not about how far you can ride; it’s not about fenders and 32mm wide tires and matching Carradice bags; and it’s definitely not about what kind of bike you own, be it lugged steel, aluminium, titanium or even carbon fibre.

The most important thing about riding a bike is simply that … just riding. As individuals, we shouldn’t let magazines (not even the Rivendell Reader) dictate our attitudes about equipment.

BOBness is part of the psyche; part of the soul

Among other things, it’s a willingness to help a stranger without expecting any more than a thank you in return.

In my opinion, Chris’s actions that late summer afternoon in 1994 epitomize this attitude.

Recent experiences in other parts of my life make me think back to that day; and one thing that I’ve come to realize is that there was almost an almost Zen-like (or at least my interpretation of Zen) quality I once had towards bicycles; a quality I’d like to rediscover.

I’ve been giving some thought to resigning my position with my current team, to just going back to riding for enjoyment. When I joined the team 3 years ago, it’s because the attitude was of having fun … riding bikes and drinking beer; and it really didn’t matter how we did in competition. It seemed for a long time that there was a slot saved in second-last (or NQDFL) for a Cutthroat rider.

These days, I’ve lost my joy of riding. The team is doing better at races, people actually train, and it seems like much of the fun has gone out of it, especially for me.

For the past couple of years, I’ve not ridden my bikes much at all … a lot of which has been due to dealing with various life issues, such as depression and divorce, but also because it just isn’t as fun as it once was …

Most of the time I do ride, it’s by myself; because I don’t have to worry about holding people back, or the ride turning into a mini-race.

There is a time and a place for racing, but does racing or training to race have to be a part of every ride? I don’t think so …

On the other hand, I know people who totally reject racing as well … for them cycling is still all about the equipment, but in the opposite direction of the racers; cycling is about fenders and bags and wool and seersucker, or about fixed-gears and brakes (or no brakes).

And it really shouldn’t be about any of it … or it should be about all of it.

Oh, I’ll still ride cyclocross (since what I do can’t really be called “racing”), simply because it’s such a blast … and I love that the Utah Cyclocross series is a situation where I can have a positive impact by helping make it possible for those who want to race to do so.

No decisions about the team just yet … just a long ramble.

Addendum: Call me a hypocrite if you will, but despite all the above rambles, I still think that recumbents are sick and wrong.

Author unknown, but I first heard it from Grant Petersen, of Rivendell Bicycle Works … I don’t remember if he told it to me, or if it appeared in one of the old (Bridgestone) BOB Gazettes or in the Rivendell Reader. The original source really doesn’t matter; but rather what the story illustrates.

A Zen teacher saw five of his students returning from the market, riding their bicycles. When they arrived at the monasteryand had dismounted, the teacher asked the students, “Why are you riding your bicycles?”

The first student replied, “The bicycle is carrying the sack of potatoes. I am glad that I do not have to carry them on my back!” The teacher praised the first student, “You are a smart boy! When you grow old, you will not walk hunched over like I do.”

The second student replied, “I love to watch the trees and fields pass by as I roll down the path!” The teacher commended the second student, “Your eyes are open, and you see the world.”

The third student replied, “When I ride my bicycle, I am content to chant nam myoho renge kyo.” The teacher gave praise to the third student, “Your mind will roll with the ease of a newly trued wheel.”

The fourth student replied, “Riding my bicycle, I live in harmony with all sentient beings.” The teacher was pleased, and said to the fourth student, “You are riding on the golden path of non-harming.”

The fifth student replied, “I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle.” The teacher sat at the feet of the fifth student and said, “Ahh…. I am your student!”

People ask me why I don’t train as I should if I want to be a competetive racer, especially for cyclocross since I love it so much … somewhere along the line I realized that cycling to me is not about being competitive; it is simply about riding the bike.

I love cyclocross; I love that it’s about bursting a lung, while your heart is pounding, pounding, pounding in your chest, and the entire contents of your abdomen from neck to gut feel like their about to eject from your mouth … “oh look! there’s my spleen!”

Riding cyclocross is not about winning for me. It’s about having fun. It’s about riding my bike.

So why didn’t I ride yesterday’s race up in Heber? Multiple reasons; first and foremost is that I have been recovering from a back injury, and am completely out of shape … and I don’t believe in inflicting pain on myself in such a manner that will keep me off the bike (or off the ski slopes) even longer.

I also enjoy watching watching cyclocross; I enjoy seeing other people experience the same sort of exhilarating pleasure of suffering that I get … and if enabling others to experience that same thrill means that I must sacrifice, then that is what needs to be done.

There is a full season of cyclocross ahead … I guarantee that I will hack up my spleen and kidneys at a few of them.

I’m not giving any more money to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and I don’t think anyone else should either.

This has nothing to do with my belief that Lance Armstrong is a doper, as evidenced by his “positive” retroactive EPO test on one of his remaining urine samples from 1999, his “positive” test for cortisone (with a retroactive doctor’s note) in either 1999 or 2000, or even testimony from various former employees of the US Postal Service professsional cycling team in various forums, including Pierre Ballester & David Walsh’s book, LA Confidentiel: les secrets de Lance Armstrong, which I strongly urge anyone who can read French to buy and read. Maybe someday, the English translation will be made available …

I’ve always felt that Lance Armstrong was doping, but I also believe the professional peloton is not as clean as they proclaim, not as dirty as WADA contends, but I don’t really care. Cycle sport is entertainment; when I watch it on TV, I’m looking for spectacle and drama, which will exist with or without performance enhancing drugs.

Nope, my thoughts on the LAF boycott now have to do with the 800-lb gorilla stomping on the little guy.

Gary Boulanger, the Bike Evangelist, and owner of Cycles Gaansari, formed SKIDSTRONG back in May of 2004, around the same time that the LAF came out with their wristbands. One of their customers saw their yellow-rimmed wheels in the window, and said “Cool wheels! They remind of those new yellow bands! You should call them Skidstrong!”, so they did.

SKIDSTRONG was formed to benefit the Bicycle Messenger Emergency Fund, a non-profit organization that provides emergency compensation to bicycle messengers who have been injured on the job. The BMEF is not a huge organization; they provide $300.00 to an injured messenger within the first week of an accident to help cover immediate expenses like food and medicine.

But now the Lance Armstrong Foundation is going after anyone and everyone who they feel is trying to cash in on their name. In late November, Cycles Gaansari was served with a cease-and-desist letter (which I wish Gary had posted on the SKIDSTRONG website). Rather than fight the battle, SKIDSTRONG has changed their name to FISSO, which is Italian for “fixed”.

Gary is an evangelical Christian. I seldom agree with his politics, but I have lots of respect for the man I met many years ago (when he was working for Rivendell Bicycle Works and Waterford Precision Cycles), and have remained in sporadic contact with over the years. I believe in what he is doing with his life; if that is inspired by God, then so be it!

I’m sure that Gary is too much of a Christian man to express how he feels … but I’m not.

The SKIDSTRONG concept is not hurting the Lance Armstrong Foundation. It is helping a small group of people who are too often overlooked or sneered upon in our society, and you’d think that the LAF would have bigger fish to fry.

Why aren’t they going after the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for selling pink “SHARING THE PROMISE” wristbands? Why aren’t they going after the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for selling red “HOPE” wristbands?

Nope … they’re going after SKIDSTRONG, because it has the word “-strong” as part of its concept (something the LAF didn’t copyright until August of 2005, by the way, yes 2005 … this year) … and people might confuse the LAF with the Bicycle Messenger Emergency Fund.

What a fucking load of horse-shit.

So no, the LAF is not getting any more of my money. I’ll be donating directly to the BMEF, supporting FISSO.

I’ll also be supporting the Tyler Hamilton Foundation, because despite his own current doping allegations, I believe in what the THF is doing, and they’re not trying to smack-down the little guys who are also trying to accomplish some good.

For more information on SKIDSTRONG and the LAF, read the following:

• Skidmark Blog Entry
• Cyclelicous
• Moving Target

I’d appreciate it if someone points out other links, and definitely encourage everyone to contact the LAF and express your displeasure.

Time to break out the LIVEWRONG bracelets again.

Update: 12/9/2005

A toned-down version of this rant was published as a webletter on VeloNews.com.

Update: 12/12/2005

A reasoned response to my webletter was published on Velonews.com.