An Ode To the Master

My cycling career began one day sitting on the porch in front of an aged loft in Topeka, KS. I swam throughout college and when my eligibility expired I was left in the midst of a quarter life crisis. I had swum for close to 20 years by that point. I was even thinking about going beyond college to try for a spot on a national team. I was a much better long course swimmer than I ever was in short course and I had found a great home in Ft. Lauderdale with an excellent coach.

When everything went sideways in my life in the Spring of 2001 I was lost. The athletic department at Kansas decided to cut both the men's swimming and tennis programs at the same time. I was devastated. I mounted a campaign to right the wrong and invested all my time and energy into undoing the injustice that I felt had occurred. When it was all said and done I was burned out of the idea of swimming and was out of shape and there was no coming back in time to compete that Summer.



So I bought a bike. No real good reason why I bought a bike. However, I went out the very first day on my new bike in a black pair of shorts and a white t-shirt. I spent that Summer getting my legs into shape and learning all about bike racing. I was obsessed. I read every magazine I could and watched every movie ever made about cycling...all three. I signed up for Downers Grove as a Cat 5. Downers Grove is the national championship crit...not at the Cat 5 level but it's a big race none the less. So all of the area Cat 5s were gunning for it and this was my first race.



It rained that morning and the course is terrible in the rain. A set of concrete brick crosswalks in the middle of corners otherwise made of asphalt which turns the course into ice when wet. I went down twice in a 20 minute race. Once in the final corner in which I sled out and landed head first into a hay bale. Amazingly I got back up on a bike two days later.



In the process of crashing my bike that day I put a nasty dent into my wheel set. I needed to get that fixed but I knew nothing of bike shops in Kansas which was where I was heading. I somehow got in touch with the KU Cycling Club and a man named Jed got back to me. The next thing I knew this monster of a mountain man from New Mexico by way of Montana and Topeka was showing me the roads around Topeka and dropping me like nobody's business on an easy training ride.



So there we sat, Jed and I, on his porch talking about bike racing. It was from that day that I knew bike racing was something a world apart. The rest is somewhat a short history. I feel that it's ironic that on many of my training rides I pass this site:

I once tried to send Jed a pix of a stuffed moose and he responded to me saying: "My name is Jed. I live in South Carolina. I have a hound dog named Red. What makes you think my phone can receive pictures?"

So, as I get ready to go and race at Downers Grove for the first time since meeting this mountain man I reflect on how much we all need him back in the sport...come back Jed we need you.