02.18.22

    What do you share? Completed projects, sure. Once my hands are off it there’s no reason to hold onto anything. Put it out there. See what happens.  Colorchaserdotnet is more of a repository. It’s a place where things get dumped and updated. I have no idea how to build really great websites but, whatever. Have you every been in a point in your life where you can’t even remember all the “important and pivotal” moments that led from A to B through years of trial and error? I feel compelled at times, to stop and pick a moment, just to connect the dots. 

    My first road bike? A 34 lb Walmart Huffy, which became a Mexican Bianchi, that we briefly traded for an aluminum Panasonic. There was the aluminum Trek that was two sizes too big for me, the experimental titanium Telodyne with all the exposed weld-points from previous fractures. Aside from the road bikes I owned hard-tail Gary Fishers and a Specialized Ground Control. A Proflex with that elastomer suspension. Then came a Surly Cross-Check. A Giant Cadex. A Raleigh Team Carbon. A Giant TCR. Another Trek aluminum in U.S. Postal colors. I’ve had beach cruisers. Fixies. Custom builds I slapped together during the off-season in the shop. I even owned a Big Wheel. Who didn’t? Right now I ride a Fuji SL 3.1 with a solid Ultegra groupo. It feels good. A few shifting issues had to be dialed in, but it gets me up the peaks. 

     I completed my first century ride in Ash Fork, Arizona on that Huffy. I was 12 years old and remember being mortified by a Cat II fellow, scoffing as he came up to the starting line. I thought I was riding a “Brand New Bike”. Period. It cost $120 dollars for your information; more than I’d ever been gifted for any holiday. While the man’s casual rebuke stung, I kept riding. I rode long after my step-father gave up around mile 50. In the next newsletter of our local cycling chapter, I read my name in the first column. No one mentioned my Huffy. They only took a paragraph to honor the fact that a 12-year-old had done the Ash Fork Century. There was a lesson here, and I was too young to appreciate it. As I upgraded over the years I came to understand what it meant to race and medal in road competitions;  the training involved and the actual gear and weight ratios needed to stay in the peloton. Keep in mind, this is rural Arizona in the early nineties. Cars routinely honked, swerved into the shoulder on purpose, spit or threw cans of old Mountain Dew at us on any given ride. Our local chapter was a tough little crew. We knew what to expect every time we put on spandex shorts and hopped onto a main road. We looked out for each other and kept a slim profile, signaling around broken whiskey bottles and debris. There were plenty of reasons to abandon cycling altogether. It was not cool. Cool kids had dirt bikes that you could take all over the limestone trails in the national forest. Mountain biking was still dominated a handful of hard-tail protos of myth and legend that mostly lived in Colorado. All I had was a loaned VHS of the 1989 Tour De France, the one where Fignon thinks he’s got it until the final time trial and LeMond snags it in epic form with his aero bars and teardrop helmet. All my knowledge and inspiration was built off of this videotape and the occasional copy of Bicycling Magazine. I knew about Rebecca Twig’s Silver at the Olympics, dreamed of owning a Merlin, and kept a spiral-bound journal with all my training times and notes. 

     A few days ago I took my 42-year-old self and the Fuji to Upper Lake Mary. A little 30-miler. I hadn’t been on the bike in awhile; not since coming back from Colorado in October when it was already getting chilly. I’d flipped it upside-down to get it in shape back in December only to find a plethora of issues and damage that had occurred in transport. It would need special orders and patience. When everything came in to the local shop I was preoccupied with other projects and only glanced wistfully in the corner where she sat like a sad grey shadow. Finally, last week, I had a couple days off and got her back together. The full treatment: A nice wash, full lubrication up and down the cables, and a deep clean of the drive-train. With the tires maxed nicely around 115, I set out for the lakes and took it easy. It still brings me happiness that after 30 years. I love the simple feeling itself. It’s a freedom thing:

     The first climb. The smell of the pines. A brisk morning. Suddenly, you’re on the a nice flat curving around the side of a lake, smiling for no good reason. I still let out an uncontrollable “Whoooo!” on a sweet downhill and I’m still looking for a good century to do this year. There's a photo of LeMond and Hinault battling it out in the Pyrenees that hangs next the doorway on the studio wall. The good old days. I still follow the Tour and still root for the underdogs. Still rather coast downtown than sit in traffic and wait for lights to turn green. Hopefully, still a kid that loves bikes.