I am a cyclist. I am not a cycling
enthusiast, or a bike racer. I am a cyclist.
I started riding my bike when I was 12 years old as a way to get around the
country roads we lived on. It wasn't weird to ride on those long gravel roads
since I had never known anything other.
Together with my brother we were raised to have a adventurous spirit that
translated well to my life on the bike. Soon after I discovered the imagery of
the Tour. I started racing at 16. I never really wanted to race, I wanted
to ride. I found the attitude bike racing left a bad taste in my mouth for
what the cyclist lifestyle meant for me. I have worked as a bike mechanic for
around 10 years in 3 separate bike shops along the way.
I have toured a
little bit but I always felt the bohemian lifestyle of a bicycle tourist
lacked the speed and fitness that I found in the world of bicycle racing. The
smoothness of speed and lightweight bicycles over long distances, through all
types of weather while style having a profound connection with the world
around you.
In 2000 I moved to Portland, Oregon and found a job as a bicycle
courier and discovered, in my opinion, one of the last holdouts of the true
cycling lifestyle. I worked as a courier for 5 and a half years. The courier
work ethic of just putting your head down and pushing through the conditions
appealed to a part of my being that I didn't know I had. It was during this
time in my life when I started racing again.
I competed in an unsupported
alleycat style randoneer race from San Francisco to Portland in four days, did
the Seattle to Portland ride in one day and won the first ever Trans Iowa
gravel road race. The Trans Iowa is a favorite memory. 300 miles of gravel
roads in my home state that I grew up riding on, riding the first frame I ever
brazed. I cried a lot on my way to winning the unsupported race in 23 hours. That
IS what cycling means to me. Not a ultra event, not a lycra-clad paceline or a
competition to see who is riding the lightest parts, but a stage in a journey to
a greater understanding of what makes one person desire to ride through anything
for the glory of the suffering.