Kevin F

(Not really the kind of post I wanted to put up but I didn't know where else to put it.)

This past week I've been a bit numb and at a loss.

I learned from his brother that a friend Kevin F from back in the day had passed unexpectedly late last week. I don't know what happened. Nothing planned at this time. It feels tragic, his wife died a few years ago, cancer I think. He's survived by two daughters.

I'm still assimilating the idea of him being gone.

I was in a group text chat with him and another rider from the same era, the chat's been going for a few years, it's one of those chats that sometimes there are 50 updates in a day, sometimes zero. I actually turned off alerts on the chat because when at the start it blew up my phone.

Kevin last responded July 1. We got the message from his brother July 5th.

Kevin loved the romantic cycling culture. He wasn't into all the tech, the gear, the structured training. He was the "42x18 for 1500 miles in the spring" kind of person. 23mm tubulars, 32h GP4s. I think if he could ride a Coppi era bike he'd be psyched.

He wanted to go bikepacking. He sent all these clips of riders riding on quiet, peaceful trails.

He sent me all sorts of books on the older champion racers, Bahamontes, Bartali, etc, and history of the Giro and things like that.

Way back when he sent me spare parts that weren't made anymore, Gimondi 3ttt bars (crit bend heat treated alum bars that I preferred), Titanio 2000 saddles, Aerolite pedal parts, things like that. We actually bid against each other briefly on a part on eBay until he realized it was me and stopped bidding. I don't use my eBay username anywhere else so I don't know how he knew it was me, but he asked me if I was bidding on this part to verify.

One of his texts was his feeling on some parts link he had sent. "Old tech is cool tech".

He and I were obsessed with cycling back in the day. For the reader's info, it was 8th grade for me, he was a year younger, we started racing a year later. We idolized the pros, we dreamed of riding on cobblestones, we wanted shoe covers and long sleeve jerseys, rarities for us. We could only afford shorts and a short sleeve jersey, any additional clothing was so expensive to us.

We lost touch a bit when he stopped racing, but roomed together for a year after college. Then he moved out west and we lost touch.

Whenever I saw certain pro racing pictures I'd think of him. The pictures were always the tough riders of Belgium, the flahutes, in the damp chilly one day Classic races in the spring, because that's when we rode together.

For me he was always the rider bundled up with long sleeves covering his arms, but with shorts exposing his heat rub covered legs. Shoe covers big with skinny angles stuck in them. Skinny narrow hips, skinny narrow shoulders. Helmet with a cycling cap sticking out from under the front of the helmet. Thrashing the bike when out of the saddle, rocking it side to side. Rolling hard when seated, effort obvious, never effortless like the dominant riders.

Face lined with the weariness of life.

For many, many years my favorite time to ride was in those flahute kind of conditions, mid 50s, damp, overcast, a bit wet out, bare legs but bundled feet, big gloves, cap with a brim to help protect the eyes when riding head mostly down, letting me look over my glasses without getting rain and grit in my eyes. Maybe it was the years from when I grew up in Holland, where it rained seemingly every day. I don't know.

Me trying to be the flahute I think of when I think of Kevin

About 15 years ago, when I started to decline the chance to ride in mid 50s drizzle in the grey outdoors, my wife would start asking me, "Where did your flahute go?"

For many, many years there was one race I had on DVD that had a rider that was exactly my image of Kevin. I wanted to make a clip out of the race, set to a specific song that flooded me with the feelings of those damp, chilly rides we did in the early season. I had ideas on the kinds of scenes I wanted in the clip, where they'd be set relative to the music. I knew the emotions and feelings I wanted to capture. I kept putting it off for one reason or another.

I finally made the clip a couple years ago. The pro rider is Nico Mattan, the race Ghent Wevelgem. Nico Mattan in this race was that archetypal representation of  Kevin. Mattan looked like Kevin on the bike, pedaled like Kevin, and poured his heart and soul into the bike like Kevin.

The song too, the rolling rhythm, voice breaking as the finale begins... I didn't say it at the time but the entire thing was because of Kevin.

It's been difficult to watch this now.

The clip:

The other day I was in the grocery store and saw some Parmalat milk. They sponsored the Amore Vita cycling team, and is, in the US, a very European but somewhat obscure brand. I thought, "Oh, Kevin would get a kick out of this!" and took my phone out and took a picture so I could text it to him:

Then I realized I couldn't send it to him.

I'm still at a loss. It doesn't seem real to me. I haven't really told anyone about it. The other day we asked his brother if it was okay to let people know. His brother said yes. So I'm posting this.

Life - Life's Rich Pageant

So I'm getting old.

Seriously.

I never thought of myself as someone getting old. I talked with someone about this a while back. I don't remember who because, you know, I'm getting old. Anyway...

 In the old days, like 50 years ago, people went to high school, maybe they went to college, then they got married, had kids, worked for 30 or whatever years, and retired.

When you put ages to those steps, you basically got married well before you were 30, and by 30 you'd defined your life path. At 40 you had kids in middle or high school, if not already out of the house. If you started in certain professions, like being a firefighter or a law enforcement officer, you might be retired and starting a second career.

You were "middle aged".

At 50 you could look back at your "defined at 30" path and see how you did. If you worked for an older kind of company you might retire early.

When you were 60, if you were a firefighter or something, you could very well be twice retired. Not just once, twice. Two pensions, because that's how they did things back then. And really, at that point, no cares in the world.

Now it's a bit different.

Let's take 40.

I wasn't even married at 40. Kids? That started about half a decade later.

I was in a relationship (with the future Missus, so it wasn't like it was just any relationship) but I spent my summers focused on racing bikes, the springs on promoting races, and my routine, for the prior 25 years, was to start doing longer rides in the fall, "for next year", train in the winter, the spring series in the spring, then race the summer and fall. I'd work on my cars or do yard or housework in there somewhere.

At 40 years old I was living, in my dad's days, a 20 year old's life. Or maybe a 17 year old's life.

Heck, I was blogging. That says a lot right there.

Okay, fine, I'd owned my own house, and I'd learned about grown-up home stuff slowly, agonizingly. I didn't realize that thermostats didn't go below 55 degrees because no sane person would lower their heat below that. I was trying to save money and I got upset when I realized that the coldest I could set the temperature to was 54 degrees. One of my roommates, someone I'd known since 8th grade, with incredible optimism and support, told me that it was nice to wear sweaters inside the house.

A short time later she bought an electric blanket.

I'd owned my own business. It didn't make it, and, based on stuff I've since learned about business and myself, that's not super surprising to me. I tried hard but my efforts were probably a bit misdirected. Ultimately I started to crumble under the stress and my productivity dropped dramatically as I relied more and more on my friends/coworkers - my coworkers were my friends. I know now a bit more and I shake my head when I think of some of the things I did, or the things I spent my time on.

During that time I struggled through a succession of not-ideal cars, a couple handed down from my parents, others bought unwisely.

The Capri in Salt Lake City, UT.

Note the distinctive orange rims (ASC McLaren stuff), with matching body accents.

I read now that the Capri RS was a desirable car back in the day.

I'm pretty sure my car got shredded into scrap metal.

My brother and I were talking very recently about stuff and somehow we ended up talking about my Capri. On paper it rocked. 17.5 psi boost (about 10 psi over stock), SVO block with low compression pistons for big boost, big exhaust, McLaren 15" rims (not the metric TRX things fitted to other Capris from that era), SVO 5 speed transmission, subframe braces, flared fenders, factory McLaren "kit", (non-functional) hood scoop, yada yada yada. I bought it and drove it around the country, about 10,000 miles of driving in a month.

The sad reality was that the car was barely able to move under its own power. It had a pull-through turbo, so the turbo pulled directly through the carburetor. How that didn't blow up I have no idea, but it was impossible to start when if you stopped for a few minutes and then tried to start it again. Then, on top of that, I was on almost bald tires in snow (Winter Park CO at one point), the thing got 10 mpg under boost (boost required to go over 55-60 mph), and it had a tiny 11 gallon tank. Also during the trip I had to replace the clutch slave cylinder (San Luis Obispo to Santa Monica without a clutch), get the carb rebuilt (turbo heat - it glowed a dark orange after a hot run and you could see it if it was dark out and you popped the hood - and the carb probably wasn't great for rubber gaskets and such), and put about 20 things of "aluminum dust that keeps your cooling system from leaking" to get home. Plus I had an engine compartment fire the first day of the trip, which was my fault so I'll leave it at that. It wasn't that bad since I had three fire extinguishers in the car and didn't even use up one entire can.

I got home, the poor thing struggling like mad, and I managed to drive it another 100 or 200 miles before the engine finally gave up. Probably due to the aluminum dust stuff in the cooling system, no doubt aided by the time the radiator fell backward into the front of the engine shortly after getting home.

Yeah. The radiator fell back into the engine, while I was going 35 or 40 mph.

So we start talking about the car and my brother's face just lit up.

"The Capri? That's a Mercury, right? Yeah, that was a perfect 20 year old's car!"

There wasn't a really different way to put it, except at the time I was 25.

I was already falling behind the curve.

Anyway, during that trip I had a pretty big (for me) sound system in the car that I'd installed myself. I had some stupid amp, 300w or something, a big equalizer (12 band?), and I'd made a "custom" subwoofer box for the back of the Capri. It housed two 15" woofers as well as some midrange speakers and a pair of tweeters.

Because, you know, on a cross country trip, it's important to have tunes even if, say, the engine wasn't running well, or the tires were about as slick as a race car's, or... well you get the idea.

I had a tape deck in the car that overheated or something after a while so I could play tapes for an hour or two then I'd have to listen to the radio while whatever tape thing cooled off. Then I could play tapes again. In areas where my weak antenna didn't pick up stations, or I didn't feel like listening to the traffic report. To wit: "A pickup truck went off the road at such and such place. There were no serious injuries. A pickup truck went off the road at a different such and such place. There were no serious injuries." Seriously, that was the traffic report. The business news was hog and grain prices.

I had a hacked CB radio that a coworker modded for me so I'd have a bit more broadcast power. I didn't use it but it was handy for getting a feel for the area. When a weigh station opened it was a big, big deal, the airwaves went crazy for a bit. Otherwise I used that and a radar detector to keep myself sane. Or not, because driving across Kansas at night with nothing but some fuzzy CB radio and a very quiet radar detector was probably like, oh, I don't know, flying a ground attack plane for 4 or 5 hours before even getting to enemy territory (I'm thinking the F-111s that flew around Europe from the UK to attack Libya, for example). Things were supposed to be calm but all hell could break loose any second also.

Of course I brought along my suitcase of tapes. It's a little briefcase of tapes. Come to think of it, I still have it, and it's still full of tapes.

My tape box. I even labeled it with my name.

And a bike sticker.

Tapes still inside. Stickers are like the ones on my bike.

I have no working tape decks so that's sort of a pity.

It'd be nice to listen to them while on the trainer.

I had a few mixes of songs, but I had a number of straight up albums.

Most of them were REM.

One of them was Life's Rich Pageant.

It was absolutely the album that defined my life for a couple of years.

Once I'd gotten the inspiration to put "Actual Size" on my bike, through a Laurie Anderson flick I'd seen on campus, I realized that a huge part of my life was listening to music. It pulled me through abject uncertainty, intense crushes, exploring life, and, of course, listening to music on the way to races. After that Actual Size on the downtube I started adding more decals, spelling out stuff significant to me.

"Begin the Begin", from Life's Rich Pageant.
This was, intentionally, one of the first phrases I put on the bike.
Note the similar types of letter stickers as the ones on the tapes.

When I hear some of these songs it brings back memories of emotions. It's not memories per se, because I don't think of, say, a particular incident or moment. Instead it's more of a feeling, an emotional state. It's remembering how I felt in the spring when I was going to one of the early season races, or how I felt when I was driving in unbearably hot weather through some painfully monotonous highway on the way back from the crits in NJ in May.

Or humming the song to myself, somewhat desperately, as I tried to pour my soul into the pedals on some training ride.

In the end I traded the not-really-running Capri for some subwoofers, and, honestly, at that point in my life, I came out on the better side of the deal. The recipient? One of my coworker/friends from the shop, one of my groomsmen when I got married. I sort of wish I could have put all the good stuff from that car into another (Fox-model) body, like my old Fairmont, but the reality is that for me it would never happen.

The Fairmont and the Capri shared the same "Fox body" chassis.

My dream was to put the Capri stuff into the Fairmont.

Because combining two decrepit cars would make one good one, right?

And, after helping yet another engine meet an early demise (I managed to turn a VR6 into a VR2), I finally had the money to buy a new car, one with a warranty. My mom told me I needed to get a car that I could rely on, one that started when I turned the key, stopped when I pushed the brake pedal, and turned when I turned the steering wheel, and if that stuff didn't happen someone would work on it "under warranty".

I bought my first new car with that advice in mind.

With that, here's Life's Rich Pageant, "Begin The Begin", which I desperately hummed while trying not to falter on my training rides at the time, and an album that I basically burnt out on during my 10,000 mile drive around the country. I had a hard time listening to most of the music for about 10 years but now I'm starting to revisit it.

The rest of the album follows "Begin the Begin".

Life's Rich Pageant, by REM

Life - Honesty

I worked at a McDonalds when I was in college, 2 weeks a year for two years, during Christmas break. I did it to make some pizza money, to buy bike parts, and because I didn't know what else to do for four weeks in a cold, dark January Connecticut.

I interviewed with the McDonalds that I'd first visited when I was maybe 4 years old. I remember it was a rare treat for me to actually go there but I'd always look at it when we drove by. It was one of my many landmarks that I kept in my 4 year old head.

We moved away from that area for a good 6 or 7 years, visiting it annually. And, for whatever reason, we'd always drive by that McDonalds. One thing that impressed me was just how many hamburgers that little place served. I didn't realize the number on the sign, so many millions served (now it's in the billions), was the total of all the McDonalds in the world, not just that one place. I didn't see that sign elsewhere so I figured they were counting just their own sales.

So when I went looking for a job for a few weeks I decided to look at places where there wasn't a lot of skill, there was probably high turn over, and I could qualify for the job without having a college degree.

The new Burger King wasn't hiring so I went and filled out an application form at that really busy McDonalds that sold 100 million burgers or whatever.

I got an immediate interview with the manager, a guy named Alan. He was pretty laid back. He knew what needed to get done and he also understood that being a jerk about it wasn't going to help.

He asked me what I thought I'd be doing.

"I dunno, flipping burgers or making fries or something."
"Why's that?"
"Because I can only work for a few weeks and if it takes a week or two to train me to do something else then I wouldn't be productive."
"Have you worked with money?"
"Yeah, at the bike shop."
"Well, if you want to work, I'm going to put you in the drive-thru."

I took the job.

I didn't think much of it, honestly. I'd applied for three jobs and gotten them all, most of them with a pretty informal interview like the one I just had sitting at a table at the McDonalds.

I went for my first day of work and Alan gave me a uniform. Shirt, pants, and the hat thing. The shirt was fine - they all were because I was so skinny - but the pants were sort of a problem. They were way too long because I have really short legs, and they fit way too tight around the thighs because I'm a bike racer (hahahaha! Actually I'm sort of serious about that, the thighs were really tight).

I preferred to wear my own jeans, which happened to be black. Alan, as laid back as he was, told me no.

I asked why I had to wear the McDonald's pants. Not only were they uncomfortable but they had no pockets so it was impossible for me to carry my wallet and keys. He explained that in the drive thru (this before credit cards at McDs) there was a high risk of theft. He carefully explained that if a drive thru teller like myself shorted each customer a dime, at 50 or 60 cars an hour the teller could more than double their hourly wage. Since we got about $5.75/hour at the time for the late shift (substantially less for day shift), another $5-6 per hour was no laughing matter. Most customers would miss quarters but not dimes, so, as Alan explained it, the teller had to short dimes or nickels. Then if the customer stopped and complained the teller could apologize and just give them another dime or whatever.

You know the bit about drive thrus in Lethal Weapon, right? (warning: link has language)

He explained that pants with pockets would only encourage that kind of action because it would allow the teller to put that shorted change somewhere.

The way he explained it was so precise, so detailed, that in a book the author would be obliged to obscure some of the details and explain that in another book some thieves actually implemented his writing and stole millions of dollars are artwork (which one author does, I can't remember which one). But this was verbal and he was basically telling me how to steal money from customers.

Then, I think my second day there, he let me wear my regular pants instead of the McDs ones.

Now I look back and it seems pretty clear that part of the game was that the drive thru was sort of a good spot for shorting change and if I was that kind of person, as long as I kept out of trouble, he'd leave me alone. I'd be hung out to dry if I got caught though.

At the same time the less cynical would say that, okay, Alan checked on me, did an honesty check, then let me work comfortably in a spot where he couldn't trust any of his other employees.

I'd like to think it was the latter.

I think I passed the honesty test when, I think on the first day of work, I reported to him in a worried manner that we might be getting set up to be robbed. He jumped and asked why. I told him that the cameras were all pointing at the registers, not at the customers, so we wouldn't be able to identify any robbers.

He looked at me for a long moment and then relaxed and grinned.

He patiently explained to me that the cameras were pointed at the registers for a reason, not at the customers, and left it at that. I couldn't understand what he meant until I told the story to someone and that someone pointed out that generally speaking the biggest thief in a place like that are the employees.

Then it sort of dawned on me about the regular pants versus the McDonalds pants and the significance of Alan letting me wear my regular pants.

I never took anything, to be clear, although I suppose if I did I wouldn't be writing about it either. The crew did discretely over produce some stuff at the end of a shift so we had to "throw it out" (into bags which the employees took home), which, based on what I've heard from other McD's people, seems to be pretty normal. I had a lot of hamburgers that January.

The following year I went back there. Alan was still there, and in fact I was apparently still an employee because he couldn't hire someone for just two weeks. Therefore he hired me and then put me on "leave of absence for school". He said that he had a 6 month and 1 year pin for me. He took me off the leave of absence list and let me work whatever days I wanted.

I quickly realized it was a totally different crew. They seemed much more hardened, much more serious. I was admiring a car in the parking lot, a Camaro (I know, I know), IROC-Z. One of the guys asked me if I wanted to buy it. Well, of course, but it's $8000 or something, way out of my league.

"I'll sell it to you for $500."
"What?"
"Then you just slip this guy at DMV $50 and he'll give you a new VIN number."

I told Alan I couldn't work there anymore.

Junior Racing

Junior 15-17 start line at New Britain (going reverse how we go now, due to a massive Junior crash in 1986 or so).

I'm looking down, blue/pink/white kit, about 5 from the right side of the picture.

I think Charlie Issendorf posted this picture elsewhere.

I bring all this up because I saw a post on the internet about Junior gears. One Junior asked why he couldn't just race his bike the way it was and then adjust the gears or change the wheel to pass rollout. I think it was an innocent question because he didn't realize the significance of the gear limit rule.

I saw an unrelated post about how Junior gear limits are a nice way of capping performance. It's easy to check, everyone gets checked, and there's no question if you fail roll out - you get DQ'ed. I know there are officials that have examples of Juniors (or rather their parents) who think that their kid should have won even though they were in a 53x11, but that's getting onto a tangent.

Same era, different race, very left of the picture. 

This is New Britain again, a spring series race since there are Seniors in here and not many leaves.

Different kit, same bike, probably earlier the same year.

Again, reverse direction compared to nowadays.

What if the officials accidentally tell you that you can run a bigger gear?

One year, at the Andy Raymond Firecracker 500 in Middletown, CT, the official/s checking rollout at registration used incorrect marks to check rollout. At the time the gear limit for Juniors 17-18 was equal to a 53x15 with an average 21-22mm tire (7.47 meters, like the plane, 747). However, at the registration roll out check, it was pretty clear that a much, much bigger gear would pass the official marks. Someone found that a 53x12 would "pass rollout" and the word spread like wildfire in the parking lots.

My teammate fitted such a gear. Us older Juniors had Senior gear freewheels because in Senior races we weren't gear restricted like Juniors are nowadays. He went back to registration and duly passed rollout.

I looked at my bike. 53x15. The sprint was off a downhill stretch, and anyone running a 53x12 would absolutely wallop someone using a 53x15.

I didn't have a Senior wheel yet so I really didn't have any way of implementing the 53x12 gear thing. Then one of my Senior teammates offered me a wheel. Because, you know, every Junior was doing it.

I hemmed and hawed but finally declined. I'd race my wheels, legally, and whatever came of it would be my race.

For once in a Junior race I didn't get shelled right away, and in fact I made it to the sprint. As a Junior I wasn't very strong relative to the others (they were all Cat 1s and 2s) so to even make it to the finish was astonishing. I was not really in contention for anything - I vaguely remember being maybe 20th going into the last turn but that probably means I was more like 30th or 40th. I fantasized about a top 6 finish, points toward an upgrade (only top 6 got points toward upgrading regardless of field size, and it was a huge field).

I do remember what happened after the final turn though.

Gobs and gobs of riders sprinted past me, like I was standing still. My teammate was one of them.

After about 15 or 20 riders passed me I sat up. I imagined most of them were running a 12 or a 13, and with the ultrafast downhill into the last turn I couldn't accelerate at all in my 15. I felt like I was sprinting in my 42T chainring.

I went back to the car, a bit disappointed in myself. I was so far back I didn't even bother going to rollout because back then they didn't pick all the spots, they only hand picked the first six or ten.

I wished in a way that I'd taken that bigger geared wheel.

Then my teammate, one of those who passed me in the sprint, came over to the cars. He'd gotten 7th or something in the sprint. He didn't look very happy.

"I got DQ'ed."
"What?!"
"They fixed the roll out marks and everyone is getting disqualified. Everyone was running 12s and 13s in the back."

I couldn't help but laugh a bit.

I'd disqualified myself simply by not going to rollout, but imagine if I'd gone? I might have placed top 6 after crossing the line 50th or 80th place. I have no idea how they worked out the placings because we left without bothering to find out.

McDonalds

The year after the Camaro conversation I went back to Alan's McDonalds, during my winter break. He was still there, asked if I wanted to work. I told him no, not this year, I was working elsewhere. He didn't seem surprised. He said that he'd be moving to a different McDonald's soon, one that had even more customers per hour. A good move for him but in that location there was no way I'd be able to drop by and say hi.

Then it got busy so he had to go, but before I got out the door he called out.

"Hey! I forgot to tell you! I have a 2 year pin for you and I still have your 6 month and 1 year pins!"

I grinned and waved.

I never got those pins.

Story - My Sharona (Or "A Single Lunch In My Road Trip Of A Lifetime")

This story is part of the four week road trip of a lifetime I took back in the days of Desert Shield (making it Dec 1990 to Jan 1991).

My Sharona, The Knack, from YouTube

One of my favorite songs back in the day was My Sharona, by The Knack. I suppose that's not unusual since it was a huge hit back then.

The song came up at some point during my four week "life exploration" thing. I allude to the road trip here in a post from 2010. I left Connecticut on Christmas Day morning 1990 and returned at the end of January 1991. I brought both my mountain bike and my road bike along with a ton of spares and tools and such. I planned on doing some long rides when I could, in whatever places struck my fancy. I chose a few destinations for various reasons:

 - Dayton, OH - customer and fellow rider from the shop days moved back to his home there after completing some internship near my shop; his family offered me dinner and a bed when I came through.

 - Winter Park, CO - customer and fellow rider was traveling and would be there; we hoped to ride or ski or just hang out.

 - Boulder, CO - customer visiting parents near shop lived in Boulder and offered me a bed.

 - Grand Junction, CO - where the famous "Tour of the Moon" stage took place in the Coors Classic

 - Santa Cruz, CA - we were there a few days before the big earthquake, virtually at the epicenter, and I wanted to re-ride the route we did just before the earthquake

 - Santa Monica, CA - wanted to check it out; it had a pier like the one we used to go to in Schevenigen, in Holland. Well it seemed similar anyway.

 - San Diego, CA - seemed like a good spot to go, as far as I could go from Connecticut within the 48 states, plus I might be able to see Mexico which I hadn't seen before.

I used a micro-cassette recorder to make audio notes to myself. I wanted a way to chronicle things without writing by hand. I considered tying a notepad to my thigh as one of my book protagonists did when said protagonist made notes about his car set up and such (book was something about hot rods in New Jersey, no idea of the book name... although some Googling makes me think it was Hot Rod by Henry Gregor Felsen, I'll have to read it to see if it's the one). Whatever the idea of trying to write on my thigh while driving didn't make sense to me. The micro-cassette recorder made more sense. I even have the tapes somewhere, and I think the actual player as well.

The car in Salt Lake City, mountain bike is inside.

The high for the day was 10 degrees F I think, I have to check my notes.

It was the morning of Dec 28, 1990, the start of the fourth day of my trip.

It was quite an adventure, to be honest, with crazy good luck and incredible risks on my part. I suppose I'll do some posts about it later. I wrote a short trip diary about it and it ended up about 10 pages long so it would be in bits and pieces.

For now I'm writing because someone posted a My Sharona clip on Facebook and it reminded me of this part of the trip.

At this point of my trip I'd been driving maybe two weeks, I don't remember exactly how long but I was starting to head back. I'd stopped in Dayton, Ohio; Winter Park, CO; Salt Lake City, UT; Santa Cruz, CA; Santa Monica, CA; San Diego, CA; and now I had just returned to Santa Monica.

I was staying at American Youth Hostels for most of the trip for a couple reasons. One was that it was cheap. The other is that I could meet people in the areas where I hadn't lined up a place to stay. In less populated areas, like in the middle of Kansas, I stayed in motels for their convenience.

In San Diego I'd stayed at the hostel near the beach.  At the time the hostel was closed from 9 AM to 5 PM. That meant that anyone staying there had to find something to do for those hours. The first day I was there I went for the mother of all bike rides. I held the chain link fence separating Mexico from the US (and an INS chopper started hovering near me, prompting my ride guide say that we had to leave). I saw where the Exxon Valdez had been refitted and renamed. I rode around Fiesta Island. Stuff like that.

Then I met Diana.

She was traveling alone as was I, we seemed to get along okay, and so after we shared a table at some dinner we ended up hanging out together.

Since I had a car we drove around a bit during that 9-5 "outside" time. This particular hostel is really geared for people on foot, like a backpacker kind of traveler, so the car was an unusual luxury. We drove out to Joshua Tree National Park, we drove out to Ocean Beach, stuff like that. Our relationship was platonic, which I think made it even more enjoyable. There was no worrying about "that" stuff, it was just hanging out and having fun. I'd liken it to hanging out in high school or even college, where it was more about exploring the area with a new friend more than anything else.

I remember one night where we stayed out talking in whatever parking lot I'd found for the car. It was light out, maybe the moon was out, but it was night, it was nice and warm, and we just sat around talking about whatever. This kind of thing really doesn't happen anymore for me. Even when the Missus and I were alone last year (the night before the White Plains Crit) we were working on the crit.

When it was time for her to leave we talked about me coming up to Santa Monica with her. I'd just been in Santa Monica for a week so I sort of knew the area. She was already planning on staying there, I had two more nights allowed there (I think they limited a traveler to nine nights a year or something at the time). Plus if I drove it would take a couple hours. If she took the train it was an all day thing, with transfers and such. We decided to make it a road trip and continue our adventures up there.

The woman checking in guests in Santa Monica thought we were a couple, even married, so that was pretty funny. Apparently we looked like we got along to others. After getting our own separate rooms we explored again. Santa Monica wasn't as foot-friendly and we didn't have the money or inclination to go travel to the typical tourist locations like Disney or Universal Studios or whatnot. I think we went out once in the car but mainly we walked around for the two days and change we had together.

We were walking near the hostel, I think on a block converted into a walking street, when we decided to stop in a place for lunch. We were at some salad bar or something, I forget exactly what the set up was, buffet style or Chipotle style or just a salad bar, but whatever it was a bunch of people in the restaurant had to get in some line for food, including us.

At that moment we happened to be talking about the music we liked when we discovered rock and roll. For me the first two songs were ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" and, of course, The Knack with their hit song "My Sharona", linked at the beginning of the post.

While we were talking about the songs (I think I had to sing a bit of My Sharona as Diana didn't know it) I noticed an older white guy giving me the evil eye. Now, back then, I was subject to quite a bit of racism, being Asian. Whenever something weird happens to me I always take my race into account, to see if maybe that was part of it. Being in an unfamiliar environment I wasn't sure what, if any, things I should or shouldn't do. Diana was white. With my first girlfriend, also white, I got flak from various strangers, randomly, and sometimes in quite ugly and public ways.

(I'll note that this is mainly no longer the case, just to make things clear.)

Therefore, unfortunately, this guy giving me the eye set off some internal alarms.

Diana and I sat down, away from that one guy; I actually directed her toward a different part of the restaurant. The place was pretty crowded, we were pretty far from the guy, so I felt pretty safe. I wasn't really being too provocative, we weren't making out or anything, just two people having lunch. We continued our conversation, moving on from our favorite music as teens to other topics.

At some point I looked up. I was shocked to see the older guy was standing right next to me, at our table. He glared at me.

"Were you talking about the song 'My Sharona' when you were in line back there?", he demanded.

The whole restaurant sort of went on mute. The man's posture, his demand, it seemed a prelude to something not really good. I know I went into high adrenaline alert; I'm sure others were feeling the same way.

I looked up at him.

"Yes, I was."

The man's face broke into a huge smile.

"That's great! You know, Sharona was my daughter! She was dating that guy and he wrote the song about her! They ended up breaking up and he married someone else but that song is about my daughter Sharona!"

He turned and yelled across the restaurant, across a sea of curious and mildly concerned faces.

"Honey, I was right! They were talking about Sharona!"

The whole restaurant collectively sighed, everyones' faces turned back to their meals, and the restaurant went back to normal.

Except for our table, of course. The guy was obviously really psyched about his discovery. He told us how he used to hear the song, and people talking about the song, all the time. As time went on, though, the song sort of slipped away from the public eye. Hearing us talk about the song really made him happy. When we left he waved to us, lightly elbowing a woman who must have been his wife and pointing at us. I'm pretty sure he was telling people that, yeah, "that guy over there knows the song about my daughter".

Of course I have no idea who he is, or who she is (or was). In fact, until that moment, I didn't even know what the title of the song meant. I thought it was "Mysharona", like some weird name of a place or animal or flower or something - I never really paid attention to most song's lyrics, still don't. I just liked the bass beat, the octave up and down thing. And the muh-muh thing.

Muh-muh-muh-muh-muh-muh my, my, my, yai, yai, woo!

Equipment - Helmets That Saved Me - Specialized Sub 6, Scotch Plains, NJ

When the USCF passed the rule requiring helmets in races must pass Snell or ANSI tests, manufacturers scrambled to get helmets out there that didn't resemble motorcycle helmets. The first year of "the helmet rule" the peloton was wearing a mish mash of various helmets. One was the Monarch, one of the lighter approved helmets (who actually altered their design after testing and therefore production models didn't pass the test). Many of the other helmets out there were pretty heavy, and Giro was, I think, a year away.

I had a Monarch (and very few pictures of me using it). I never crashed it and when I learned it didn't pass the tests I only used it long enough to get another helmet. Then I tossed it. So no Monarch memorabilia here.

My (illegal) Monarch and me, Limerock, same direction as the cars.

We're on the little hill which is currently a downhill for the Limerock races. No chicane yet (that's where the backside wheelpit sits now). At the bell I was in a three man break with about 10 or 15 seconds on the field. I finished the race on the deck on the hill just as we got caught by the Richard Sachs team led field. I shifted hard into the small ring and managed to shift the chain right into the bottom bracket. I fell over but the ground was pretty low compared to the track - I couldn't reach the ground with my shoe and ended up rolling over onto my back.

Although initially mad at myself and covered in sand and dead grass I finally picked myself up and got back on the bike. I rolled down the course, mentally kicking myself for falling over. As I cleared the top of the hill and could see under the bridge I realized there were a lot of riders all over the place. I rolled forward and took in a breath taking sight - about 50, maybe 70 riders were scattered on the track and on the grass.

Apparently on the downhill (currently the "uphill") one of the first riders rode into the grass on the right trying to move up, tried to get back in, and fell over into the field. The field was going about 50 mph (the point man happened to be someone I rode with regularly) as the front riders sprinted down the hill to lead out the sprint. When the grass rider toppled over into the field at about 5th or 7th wheel, he took down a bunch of riders right there with the rest scattering mostly left to avoid the crash. I rolled across the line covered in dirt so everyone thought I crashed there also but I'd actually fallen over at zero miles an hour. I remember a Cat 1 put an ad in Velonews for the next year or so, selling all his bike stuff. Rumor had it he fell in that crash and was disgusted with how no one knew how to ride and he was selling all his stuff.

Anywho...

When Giro helmets came onto the scene it was huge. Suddenly there was this lightweight helmet that was reasonably ventilated, as much as anyone might expect, and it passed the tests. The trick was to use a harder foam (I think) as well as a mesh cover to hold all the bits together when the helmet hit the deck. This "foam with a cover" helmet design spawned a number of competing helmets. I had one of the cheap ones, an Avenir helmet. It was similar in construction, foam with a mesh cover. My helmet I'm pretty sure only passed the easier ANSI standard; I'm almost positive it failed the more stringent Snell test. However, at the time, I had just the Monarch. I negotiated with my mom - if she bought me the Avenir ($34.99?) I'd wear it every time I rode.

She bought it.

That helmet perished protecting me as well. I'm pretty sure it ended up chunks of styrofoam held together with a mesh bag (the cover). That, too, went into the trash can. Therefore no Avenir helmet memorabilia.

Avenir helmet in action, 1988, in Middletown, CT.

Rider in orange has a Giro helmet. I think they cost twice as much as the Avenir.

Another competing helmet was the Sub-6 helmet from Specialized. The goal was to have a sub-six ounce helmet that had good ventilation. This came out a bit after the Giro, Avenir, and such. I bought into it as we were a Specialized dealer and I was looking for an alternative to the ubiquitous Giro (mainly due to cost but also I just didn't want a Giro).

The Sub-6 helmet was pretty straightforward. One big innovation is that it had a plastic "frame", sort of a roll cage inside the foam. It helped hold the foam together in case of a crash. The super duper version had no shell on it; I can't remember if it eventually had to have a shell on it, I think it did, but I think initially it had no shell on it. I skipped that version but bought the one with the shell. Red, of course, to match the kit. Now that I think of it maybe it had no shell later? I don't know, 

Sub 6 in action, A race, Bethel Training Series.

I'm behind one of the Whalen brothers; John B is in the blue. I think the purple is a guy named Tom.

One of the problems with the Sub 6 is that they lightened up the helmet by making it really, really shallow. Less material meant less weight. It sat really high on your head, exposing a lot of the head up and around the ears.

However, if Motorola used it (with Phil Anderson, Steve Bauer, Andy Bishop, and a slew of other inspirational English speaking racers) then it was good enough for me.

My bike with my mechanic, if you will, Victor.

He had just gone over the bike for me and was very proud of his work.

Normally I did all my own work but he'd just resurrected one of my wheels so I let him check everything else over.

Specialized Sub-6, Scotch Plains, NJ

Scotch Plains Crit, P123

This was a P123 race that I didn't mean to enter. I'd intended to race the Cat 3 race but due to some logistical problem, probably traffic, I didn't make it to the race on time. Since I made the long drive going through NYC and committed to paying all the various tolls to and from the race, I decided to get some motorpacing in by doing the P123 race. I decided this with absolutely zero expectations of even finishing the race, forget about trying to do well.

Scotch Plains was an 8 corner, 1 mile course. The pavement melted a bit in the hot sun and the tar the Public Works Department dribbled into all the cracks softened up nicely. Sometimes you'd dive into a turn and your front or rear wheel would slide out a few inches. The melting tar felt like riding over thick oil, which, when I think of it, is exactly what was happening. It really unnerved me and I figured out the lines through the sunny corners where I'd miss the tar stripes. I think everyone did that because after the first few laps, where everyone explored different lines, we were single-double file for much of the race.

I assumed that I'd be shelled partway through the race, but as the race went on I realized that although I was hovering on the edge of explosion I wasn't getting pushed over the cusp. I told myself to do just another lap, another lap, another 5 laps, get to the prime, so on and so forth.

Racers crashed regularly. I counted at least 3 or 4 crashes in one turn alone, a left hander, three turns from the finish. It came up after one of the longer straights, transitioned from a wider road to a narrower one, and somehow guys would hit the deck there. It was such that the ambulance at the course moved to the corner and their crew stood there, waiting for the next batch of riders to come tumbling toward them.

It was about 10 laps to go, about 30 or 40 miles into the race, when I realized that, hey, I may have a chance at doing something here.

I started moving up every chance I could, usually just before or just after turns. With 8 turns a lap I had a lot of time to push a bit deeper into a turn, taking maybe 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 spots in a turn. On two straights in particular I could pedal a bit more and I'd pass another few riders.

At the bell I darted around the comet head of the field and planted myself squarely in about 8th or 10th spot as we dove into the right hand Turn One. I knew I had a couple minutes of racing left, just one mile, and I'd spend a huge portion of it coasting through turns. That meant that I could do a big surge, recover, surge again, recover, and so on. This kind of course favored my abilities, punchy efforts with quick recovery.

With the finish just a half dozen pedal strokes from the last turn, the battle would be to that last turn. This meant that going into the second last turn would be critical as the straight between them was very short. This meant going into the third last turn would be critical. The straight between the third last turn and the second last turn wasn't super short but it'd be hard to make up a lot of places. I guessed that at speed I could make up maybe 3 or 4 spots max; behind a fast guy I'd be doing well if I just stayed on the wheel. I figured the sprint would open up 100% after the third last turn.

To compound things the first five turns of the course came in rapid succession so we were lined out single or double file. It was next to impossible to move up significantly flying along at speed. We flew through that first turn, a right, then the next three turns, all lefts. Then a right at Turn Five, the opposite side of the intersection from Turn One. Then a bit of a straight to Turn Six.

Turn Six was the third last turn. The critical one in my eyes.

I approached the Turn Six sitting about 4th wheel. That in itself was a huge accomplishment. In front of me was J-ME Carney (or maybe it was his brother Jonas?). I don't remember, it was one of the two Carney brothers. More importantly, it was a pro, he was a phenomenal crit racer, and he'd be (or was already) national champion in various disciplines including the criterium.

I was on a pro's wheel, a good pro's wheel, in a P123 race, and we were approaching 3 turns to go.

I figured he'd go after the third last turn, I'd be on him like glue, and I'd get a top three.

In a P123 race!

We dove into that third last turn, hustling, with the two riders in front of the Carney brother going pretty hard. I was leaned over to the max when I realized that someone was approaching me from my left, sort of from above since I was leaned over really hard.

Some nut had sprinted up the inside to get into optimum position going into the sprint. The only problem is he couldn't make the turn. He made it up to me and promptly laid his bike down.

He slid right through my wheels.

I don't remember exactly how I flipped and stuff but I remember seeing pavement very close to my right eye for a brief moment and then a fantastic "CRACK!" as my helmet slammed into the pavement.

After that it was tumbling and such.

I ended up curled up, my hands on my head, rolling around. I looked up and saw this shadow of an enormous guy (he was one of those EMTs from that ambulance at the corner).

"Stay still!", he commanded.

I rolled around a bit more. "I'm okay, I'm okay!" I replied.

"You're not okay, you're holding your head."

I stopped and thought about that. Damn. I think he's right. I wouldn't be holding my head like this if it didn't hurt like a mofo, and it hurt pretty bad. I stopped moving around.

He took my shoes off, my socks, my gloves. He made me wince by doing something to my feet and hands. He asked me questions while he did all this. I remember having to help him with my shoes as I had all sorts of nutty stuff on it - toe straps, velcro straps.

I said that I'm okay because I'm not paralyzed so I went to get up.

"We're putting you in an ambulance."

"But I'm okay!"
"You're not okay. You took a big hit on your head. You need to get checked out."

"But I have to tell my friend who drove me here."

"Don't worry about him, he'll figure it out."

The guy, and I'm sure a helper or something, got me onto a stretcher. This was my first ambulance ride. I remember how I thought, boy, I'm glad I'm not really hurt because I feel like I'm being bounced around on the stretcher as they moved me to the ambulance. I remember that they didn't fold the legs, I think they lifted me into the ambulance because once inside I was well above the floor. My head faced the front of the ambulance, my feet the back. I couldn't move my head much (was it strapped down?) so I had to roll my eyeballs to look around.

Then we started off, siren in the background. I tried to look up to look forward. I couldn't see out the front of the ambulance so I just looked up at the ceiling.

We slowed for an intersection. Remember, my head was pointing forward toward the front of the ambulance. The blood rushed to my head.

The absolutely most excruciating pain pierced my head. I couldn't believe how painful it was, just horrible, nauseating. I felt like someone put a gigantic hardened steel spike into my head and then smashed it with a sledge hammer.

We accelerated. My head was okay.

We slowed. Arrrrhhhhhhhhhh!

Repeat about five or six times.

I got smart.

"Can we raise my head? It's killing me when we slow down."

"We're almost there."

"But... Arrrrrrrhhhhhhhhh!"

And then we were there.

Specializd Sub-6, Scotch Plains, NJ

I don't remember very much at the hospital except I was absolutely exhausted and it was air conditioned.

Specialized Sub-6, Scotch Plains, NJ
My thumb is over a sunken part of the foam.

At some point the curtain drew back and it was Mike D, the guy that I carpooled with to the race. It was one of the few times I got a ride to the race - Mike drove in his uber-cool Sirocco (MK2 for those VW nuts) - so I didn't have to weather the drive back.

I did subject Mike to a scare though - after the race he went looking for me as I seemed to have disappeared. He went to the start/finish area and saw my bike, shoes, gloves, and helmet on the announcer's platform.

He pointed at my stuff.
"Where. Is. The. Owner. Of. That. Bike?!" he hollered out.
"Hospital."

The next day I ran my hand through my hair, as I do when I'm stressed and stuff, and someone nearby screeched in surprise. Apparently the whole side of my head, under my hair, was purple, one massive bruise. I'd whacked my head pretty hard.

I had a little bit of nausea so I definitely had a minor concussion. I don't remember much about the recovery. Back then there was no Facebook, no blog, and I haven't dug through my training diaries where I probably made notes like "leg hurts" or "didn't feel sick today". Maybe one day I will. For now though the Sub-6 sits in a stack of helmets that saved me.

Equipment - Helmets That Saved Me - Bell Biker, Gallows Hill Road

Long story ahead...

Bell Biker, Gallows Hill Road, Redding, CT

Note: Gallows Hill Road in Redding, CT is immortalized (at least in my eyes) in the story about the Revolution "My Brother Sam Is Dead". If you're from the Connecticut area there are mentions of Hartford, Ridgefield, Croton-on-Hudson (NY), a few other places. The bit that gets me is that they walked ("marched") long distances, like Redding to Hartford. Anyway, on to the cycling bit.

When I Got The Helmet

I bought (or rather my parents bought) this helmet for my trip across Pennsylvania when I was 14 going on 15, back in 1982. When I got into cycling I was all about touring - that's the kind of cycling covered by Bicycling magazine. I wanted to ride with panniers, a triple crankset, wide range gearing, long wheelbase bike, yada yada yada.

My mom, ever supportive of my endeavors, found that the local Westport Y offered bike summer camps and requested a catalog. I pored over said catalog like it was a build kit for a bike... okay, maybe not that long, but I pored over it for hours and hours and hours. There were all sorts of choices, from a massive trip from Canada somewhere to somewhere in the US (Montreal to CT? I think it was 600 miles), others that were pretty short.

Because I was a bit tentative I selected a two week long trip that started somewhere way out in western PA and ended in Philadelphia. I think it was supposed to be 200 miles or something. Not very far but enough - the idea was to spend some of the days doing stuff, not just riding from one place to another. It was supposed to be a tour, not a trip.

The drop off was a nervous affair. I wasn't really sure of myself and I had no idea what to expect from the others. I quickly learned that most of the group were kids that weren't really active and their parents thought that dropping them off for a bike camp would get them in shape ("lose weight"). I can tell you that there were some miserable kids on that tour.

In contrast I'd been training in preparation for their quoted max 50 mile day. I wasn't sure if I could do a week of 50 mile days in a row but I certainly could do a few, and I did 72 miles one day in a bikeathon. I felt prepared.

Therefore when we plodded along waiting for the kids that literally didn't ride their bikes before camp I got pretty bored. As a distraction I tried going up one of the hills as fast as I could. The lead ride leader (we had three adult chaperone types) sprinted ahead of me. I tried going hard up another hill and he sprinted again.

I thought he was just having fun. I didn't realize it at the time but the Y policy was that one ride leader had to lead. Another had to sweep. The third one was the only one that could check up on the riders in the middle. We had one male ride leader, a very outdoorsy type, very fit. He was like a little Paul Bunyan. We had two female ride leaders that seemed to be more like daycare teachers, although one was admittedly an experienced touring cyclist. This meant she knew a lot about packing panniers and tents and cooking and where to camp but didn't really feel like sprinting over hills like it was a Strava KOM. The three ride leaders quickly agreed that the male would generally lead the group, especially when I started hammering up the hills.

Keep in mind that when I was 14 I was a scrawny kid. At 17 I weighed 103 lbs (my physical before going to college), so at 14 I was probably in the 90 lbs range. We carried our gear on the bike, for me it was mainly clothes, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, some tent stuff, a flashlight (for a headlight - can you believe that?), and some food. The leaders carried the tents, stoves, heavy food like canned food, and first aid kit stuff in addition to their personal gear.

The male ride leader happened to have a Schwinn Continental. I'd done some research on bikes before getting my Dawes Lightning, and I knew that the Continental was an absolute beast of a bike - 55 lbs or so, and that was without any gear on it! He had to have been easily pushing 100 lbs of bike and gear. My bike was something like 24 lbs and I was probably loaded down to maybe 45-50 lbs.

So basically the ride leader was sprinting against me while effectively pulling a trailer with a small kid in it. If you've ever pulled a small trailer with a kid in it you'll understand - it doesn't seem like much, 40 or 50 lbs, but man oh man when you start going up a hill it's like the bike dropped an anchor.

Into the asphalt.

I don't know if the poor guy was into racing at all but let me tell you, after that week, he had to have been pretty strong. We were sprinting up every hill - it was like a game for me. He made the mistake of telling me that a ride leader had to stay in front of all the camp riders. To be fair he told me this in the context of, "If one of the women are leading don't sprint. You can sprint up hills when I'm leading."

I interpreted this as, "If he was leading we were sprinting."

I'd look at him as we started up a hill, start going faster, he'd go faster, and then we'd end up going as fast as we could up whatever hill. I inevitably blew up and then we'd crawl to the top, gasping.

Then we'd do it again.

Eventually I did beat him. I remember the feeling of triumph when he finally blew up first, then used whatever lung capacity left to yell at me to not get too far ahead. For me that was a huge victory.

Toward the end I was "outclassing" him regularly. I was drafting him on the flats and then popping out for the hills. It wasn't fair, him being handicapped about 50 lbs, pulling all the time, all that stuff. I felt some sympathy so I toned down the attacks.

My favorite day was when they leaders polled us the night before about the next day's itinerary.

"Okay, we can do a really long ride tomorrow, 50 miles, and then we can spend the next day at Hershey Park. Or we can do about 30 miles tomorrow, another 20 the day after that, and we'd have a few hours at Hershey Park."

We collectively voted for the 50 mile day. We were out and on the bikes pretty quickly (it was like herding cats getting a bunch of 14 year olds onto their bikes). We ran out of daylight at about 9 PM.

Yeah, 9 PM.

I think we were out there for 10 or 12 hours. I took a wrong turn somewhere, we were in the middle of Amish land, dark farm country with no street lights, and it was getting dark.

The experienced touring ride leader had stayed in the area at some point before and knew an Amish family around the area. She called, we got permission to stay, and we rode through the dark to some farmhouse. It was huge, to be honest, about 15 kids camped out on the first floor with room to spare.

Thing was that during the day we'd go kind of hard for a while, stop, go hard again, so on and so forth. I felt super strong even at the end of ride, at night, I was just jonesing to go out and keep riding.

After a great "farm to table" breakfast (I couldn't bring myself to drink the warm milk but the eggs and ham were great!) we rode what seemed to be a mile or two and then we were at Hershey Park.

Eventually we got to Philadelphia, where a van was waiting to drive us all home. While we were there we ran up the Rocky steps. The statue was up there (I had to Google because I was wondering if it was my imagination). When I ran up the stairs later, during one of the Philly Corestates Race, it wasn't there. I was crushed that it was gone and then wondered if it'd really been there all those years before.

When I got back home I gave the panniers back to the Y, took off the rack, put the skinny tires back on, and my 14-21  "racing freewheel". I rolled down the driveway, turned right, and did a wheelie when I punched the pedals. I sprinted down the road and blew up a few hundred yards later.

It was great.

To me that was riding, to go really fast, to sprint, to go 100%.

The bike racing bug had bitten me hard.

Over the winter I saved up, negotiated a combined birthday-Christmas-months-of-chores present (where I contributed some money also) and ordered a sight unseen Basso for $550 ($50 was an upcharge for the tubulars - the shop laced over tubulars and glued on some tires for that $50). It checked off all the checkboxes:

 - Columbus tubing
 - Campy derailleurs and shifter
 - Campy hubs
 - 53x42 chainrings
 - 15-21 freewheel for Junior gearing
 - tubular GP-4 rims
 - Modolo brakes

What I didn't realize is that it wasn't all that.
 - The Columbus tubing was Zeta, which is basically their worst tubeset. It was a tank of a frame.
 - Campy Nuovo Record front and rear derailleurs and downtube shifters. Fine.
 - Campy hubs. They were Tipo hubs. Fortunately back then Campy only had one grade of bearings - excellent - and their hubs were all virtually the same quality. The Tipo hubs were great. But they weren't Nuovo Record.
 - 53x42 chainrings. They were on an Excel Rino crankset. I only knew about Excel Rino because Lon Haldeman rode Excel Rino stuff when he won RAAM. I figured it must be good if he used it. It was cast aluminum, the absolute cheapest crankset you could possibly make. But I had no idea and the chainrings were black and drilled out so I loved the crankset. The bottom bracket was the cheapest piece of junk you'd ever seen. The axle had studs on it, you used nuts to tighten the crank down. Horrible.
 - 15-21 freewheel. This was a blessing because I didn't understand the gear limit although the sales guy Lou did. Lou was the silver medalist in the state road race the prior year and was a pretty good rider.
 - The GP-4 rims were installed in place of the G40 clinchers. At the time there weren't any good clinchers so the GP-4s were a natural. I didn't realize that they'd just glue the cheapest tires on the rims. They both flatted a day apart at the end of my first season. When I went to remove them they popped right off - there was barely any glue on the rim. Yikes.
 - Modolo brakes. Not the pro ones. Not even the mid-level Speedys. I can't remember what they were. Cast. Flimsy, But they were Modolos.

I upgraded stuff over the years.

 - Campy Super Record front and rear derailleurs. I couldn't install them at the time so I had the shop do it.
 - Bar end shifter on the right. I installed that.
 - Gipiemme crankset and BB. I think I installed that.
 - Eventually got different freewheels, once I was a Senior. As a Junior the 15-21 was all I needed.
 - Ambrosio Crono rimmed wheels. I can't remember the hubs but those were some nice rims.
 - Clement FuturCx/Futurox kevlar belted tires. I used them for a long time, until I could afford Vittoria CX/CGs (front/rear).
 - Modolo Pro brakes. In red no less.

The Crash

I started riding regularly with a group that met at Oscar's Deli on Main Street in Westport, CT. We'd do about 35 to maybe 50 miles, depending on the time of year. At first I was well out of my league. I have no idea how I got home each time, some of the older riders must have been very careful to keep me on route. Part of the tough part was that it was a 10 mile ride to get to the ride, and a 10 mile ride to get home. I was adding 20 miles to the ride just getting to and from the meet point.

As I got stronger I got cockier. Eventually I was trying to match the better riders, one Cat 2 Senior (Morley B, who I worshipped like he was a demi-god) and one super classy Cat 2 Junior,  Bill W. There were a couple Cat 3s and the rest of them were Cat 4s. Back then everyone started as a Cat 4 so they were all normal riders. The Cat 3s seemed human but "really, really good". The Cat 2s were demi-gods and properly so; it's where I thought that there's no way I could be a 2 but if I could I would.

(Interestingly enough one of the guys from that era joined my current team Expo Wheelmen, completely unbeknownst to me. A couple years ago I was sitting at one of the meetings, saw him, and thought, wait, I think he was part of the Oscars crew 30 years ago. Then he came over, "Hey, Aki, I can't believe it's you!". And if that's not weird enough when I was doing the shop rides nearby, in 2009-2010, one of the riders doing the ride was also from the Oscar's ride. As we're about 2 hours away from the Oscar's ride location it's amazing that these two guys ended up in the same area as me. Anyway, that's yet another tangent...)

One day Bill W attacked on some random, generic backroad in the Redding/Easton/Bethel/Newtown area. As I was in the "I'm getting good at this" mode I followed, sprinting hard, trying to keep him in sight. The other riders let us go.

We were going fast and I thought, okay, I'm going to catch him, I'll out-corner him because I know how to stick a knee out in a corner.

The road turned hard left, Bill slowed aggressively and leaned really hard into it. I followed at a much higher speed because I was going to catch him and obviously I could go faster than him.

It was a really long left curve, virtually a 180, and very sharp.

By the time I exited it I was on the right curb and panicking. I managed to stay upright but to my horror there was a hard right curve immediately following that left. Switchbacks like these - two in a row - basically don't exist in Connecticut so I was caught with my pants down.

I got the bike heeled over to the right but I had started on the right curb, almost in the bushes. In other words I'd done about the earliest apex possible, the worst thing possible. I found myself skimming the leaves on the left side of the road, the wrong side, the oncoming traffic side.

I started thinking about survival now - catching Bill wasn't the goal anymore, my goal was to not become a hood ornament or to hit too big of a tree.

I tried to slow but the steep hill, my sprint start at the top, and the curves kept me from scrubbing off any reasonable amount of speed.

I exited that second curve on the left shoulder and wouldn't you know it, there was a left curve in front of me.

Three hard turns in a row?! On a descent? In Connecticut?!

Crap.

I dropped the bike to the left, hoping that I could make this turn, praying that it wasn't a long turn.

I was leaned pretty far over to the left, hoping I'd stay out of the trees, when I hit a severe gradient change - the road basically dropped out from under me (later I realized that even in a car the front tires would momentarily let go of the road - the gradient change was that sudden). My front wheel went light, the front end washed out, and I hit the deck.

I slid down the road, bounced off stuff in the shoulder, and ended up sitting in the middle of the road, my helmet in my hands.

I'd really clocked my head hard, my head hurt, and for a few seconds I sat there trying to gather my thoughts. I almost got hit by the rest of the club carefully descending down the same hill. When I stood up my shoes lost traction - it was that steep. I slipped down the hill uncontrollably and ended up crawling up the hill with my hands on the ground to get back up to my bike.

My bike seemed okay, I wasn't bleeding too badly from anywhere, and we had to get going. I got on the bike.

I gingerly rode back to Oscars, then back home, my head pounding. I felt a little nauseous for a while, like a few days, but eventually it went away. Headaches also, but again, they went away. I don't know what I was like immediately following the crash but I think I was lucky to escape without major problems, based on the nausea and headaches.

I know now I had given myself a concussion, and, in fact, it was probably the worst concussion I've had in my life.

Nonetheless I can't imagine what would have happened had I been wearing my favorite "Kevlar helmet" (my faded yellow Campy cap, which looked sort of like Kevlar colored hence I called it my Kevlar cap). For this reason I saved the Bell Biker helmet as one that saved me.

Bell Biker
Note the right side of the picture (left side of helmet) where the foam is not as thick as the left side of the picture.

I didn't think it looked damaged at all, at least at the time. Now that I look at it, or the pictures of it, I realized that the left side of the helmet looks pretty compressed, like maybe to half the thickness as the right side. It must have been a real solid impact. I didn't notice the compressed foam back then so I still wore the helmet after the tumble. Eventually I convinced my mom to buy another helmet for me.

That was the Brancale Giro.

Equipment - An Old Friend Returns (Brancale Giro helmet)

So an old friend came back into my life the other day. It's a 1983 or so Brancale Giro helmet, the "aero" version of the ubiquitous Brancale helmet out there at the time, the Sport.

I rediscovered the helmet out of the blue, really, because I didn't realize I didn't have it. I mean, okay, I'd looked for it briefly here and there and couldn't find it. I was trying to set up a series of posts on the helmets I used to have. I'd naturally start with my first real racing helmet. Thing was that it was so bizarre and off that I usually kept it separate from the helmets that actually saved me from injury - those are stacked in the bike room, all bashed and cracked. When I couldn't find my first real race helmet I just figured I put it "somewhere else" and figured I'd look again "later". I repeated this a few times while living at the old place and then a few more times after we moved up here about 10 years ago.

Then it appeared in the mail, absolutely and totally unexpectedly.

Wowsers.

So to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here's some info.

Brancale Giro in stock form, from eBay listings:

Stock front Brancale Giro helmet.

Stock rear Brancale Giro helmet.

I distinctly remember removing the red/green Brancale decals.

The Brancale Sport helmet, which many riders had, from here:

Many of the Sports I saw had a blue sticker over the top.

I remember these as "the white and blue helmets".

Note that these have twice as many metal rivets. I probably thought that it'd be better to have fewer rivets.

The Brancale Giro is about the thinnest, most fragile helmet you could possibly imagine. From what I can tell it's made with ABS plastic and it has some comfort foam pads, like the ones inside normal helmets to pad the styrofoam.

There is zero crush zone in this helmet. If it was a car it'd have a zero star crash test rating.

Case in point. One of my first bike mentors, I think it was Tom (or Ken, but I think it was Tom), he and I did a training ride where we finished by doing a sprint.

It involved hammering down the main road in our town, a pretty big artery road. We'd normally wind it up just before the high school which had a crit-like two-90 degree bend one-way driveway. We'd fly into the first 90 degree turn off the main road, accelerated down the short, 2 lane, one way 100 meter straight there, blasted into another 90 degree turn, then sprinted along the three lane, one-way, 120 meters to a crosswalk over the driveway. It was a perfect way to practice a two corner crit finish while at the limit and in a somewhat controlled environment.

The problem was that on that day we came around the second corner and had to slam on the brakes. A wall of school buses blocked the way. Apparently there was some after school activity requiring a dozen or so busses and the parked buses forced us to slow to a walking pace.

We threaded through the buses and crossed the road at the end of the driveway, rolled into a parking lot, climbed off our bikes, and sat on a wood fence lining the lot. Tom (or Ken) theatrically hit his helmet on one of the wood fence posts, a light hit, expressing his frustration at this whole miles long effort to get to the "final two turns" only to be thwarted by the unexpected busses.

Crack.

We both jumped, startled.

His helmet tap had cracked the thing straight across.

He looked up, now more glum than mad.

"I guess I need to buy a new helmet."

Or, as the case may have been, just glued it back together, because that would have been okay back then.

1984 Uniroyal Training Series, in Southbury or Middlebury, CT.

I'm wearing the Brancale Giro.

The other guy, Nathaniel Ruhlman (younger brother to Paul Ruhlman) is wearing a Brancale Sport.

When I started racing I had gotten the "aero" Brancale Giro, over the ubiquitous and hockey-helmet looking Sport. Even back then I really enjoyed geeking out over the technical stuff. I dreamed about owning a Miyata-Aero road bike (in 1983!). I wanted ovalized tops on my road bars, available at the time, and only got them a few years ago when I got my FSA Wing Compact bars. I wanted aero wheels in 1984, after Francesco Moser blew away the Hour Record using disk wheels, and my dream was to have the first set of tall profile wheels I'd seen (not Zipps, I can't remember the brand, I want to say Aero-something or something-Comp). 

As far as helmets went it was all about ventilation because in those days ventilation was a significant problem. I thought that it would be beneficial if I had more ventilation in my helmet. I couldn't afford a Dura-Ace AX group or an aero Miyata bike but I could increase ventilation in my helmet - all it would take is a sharp knife and some time.

Therefore I enlarged the vents already there while adding four more vents (two on each side up front).

I remember thinking as I was carving the vents, "Okay, I think that's about it, I don't think I can take more out without weakening the helmet."

Heh.

Now I look at my cut outs and think "Wow, every corner is a stress raiser!"

I was also in some Rising Sun stage of my life and I wanted to put the Rising Sun on my helmet. I didn't realize it wasn't really a good thing, but at the time I didn't know. It's not quite as bad as putting a swastika on your helmet but it's sort of similar.

I asked my mom to write down the Kanji for various words. I don't know the list (I'll have to ask someone that knows Kanji) but I think they were things like Speed, Strength, Victory, Endurance.

Bike race things.

I even used my primitive sewing skills to embroider the strap with my name in Kanji.

Then, for two years or so, I raced the helmet. Its time came to an end when the USCF passed the helmet rule where the helmets actually had to work. I believe that was 1986.

Right side.

My Rising Sun wasn't planned well so this beam had to end abruptly.

You can see the two extra vents, compared to the stock Brancale Giro at the top of the post. You can also see how big the vents got. Big is relative, of course, but compared to the helmet up top the vents are like the "bold" version of the "normal" vent.

Does that make sense?

Front.

Note that the two outermost vents in the front were hand cut.

All the vents were enlarged.

My name in the front, as the "head badge" if you will.

I cut the center vents pretty deeply. I debated cutting vents across the middle but I was doing all the cutting with an X-acto knife and it was very slow going opening a new vent. Therefore I nixed the idea of adding two more vents in the center.

The "good side".

The left side was where I hand painted the Sun part of the Rising Sun. It's what I'd consider to be the good side. Again, note the vents.

I vaguely recall enlarging the vents on one side only, riding outside, and "comparing" the difference in ventilation from left to right.

I'm sure there was a substantial difference.

Right.

The Back.

All vents were enlarged.

In the back I knew I needed to let the air out. Therefore I enlarged the vents a bit. However, after all the agony of adding vents to the sides, I decided to leave the vent count alone.

"Kamikaze" is not really an appropriate thing to put on the helmet. I wouldn't do it again.

Close up.

I'll update when I know what the Kanji means.

The rear.

You can see my attempts at neatening up the red beams. The helmet faded, exposing the white touch up paint. It was all hand painted. Since I built a lot of plastic models, generally in the 1/72 scale range (so a tank was a couple inches long, a big plane might be 10 inches long), I only had small paint brushes. It wasn't an ideal way to paint a helmet.

My name in Kanji

I wonder if anyone does this. I forgot I did this until I saw it. Makes me want to do it again.

The inside.

In this picture the right two vents I carved out, and all of them got enlarged.

You can see the rough cuts, my attempts at making the cuts the same angle, etc.

The foam padding is all the padding in the helmet. Soft foam, not structural.

Rear vents. Again, enlarged.

The rear vents were shaped to the outside, not inside, so they didn't look as big from the  inside. I remember convincing myself that the larger vents made a difference.

Carving the vents was sort of a cathartic thing. I'd sit at home and carve out the vents a bit more before some of the big races because "another millimeter of ventilation would help". Or, probably more accurately, another hour of me sitting quietly and carving my helmet would calm me down a bit and help me focus.

The other evening, when I pulled out the helmet, the Missus asked me to put it on. She cracked up when I did, so I had to run to the bathroom to see what I looked like. It was a bit ridiculous because it fits so closely to my head. Aero, though, I have to admit.

I went back and joked to the Missus that I should put it on and roll up to the start line of a race, just to get a reaction from people.

Then I realized I'd be fined for not wearing an approved helmet while riding a bike.

Ah well. I think it'll go into my glass door bookshelf, where I have my various bike trophies on display. I'm not one that has a lot of trophies so luckily (?) I still have room.

I'm glad circumstances allowed me to reunite with my first real racing helmet. It was obviously very personalized, I'd put a lot of sweat equity into it, and really, when I saw it again, it felt like I'd reconnected with an old friend.