littlecircles

Stepping back just a bit…

After multiple sessions of serious ass kicking while mountain biking with some coworkers, I realized I needed to take better care of myself. I had moved from field / shop work crafting timber frames (and other woodworking projects) – to sitting at a desk pushing pixels as a designer and project manager. I also went through a separation and divorce, and entered a bit of a black hole of Guinness drinking and bar food eating at an all too convenient pub, about halfway from the office to where I was living. The good news was that I still felt like I could ride, and really wanted to. The bad news was that I was taking on my own projects for friends – so I would manage and design during the day, and design and craft at night. For awhile I had been renting bench space in a nice shop with a local craftsman, in the scenic village of Honeoye Falls, NY. The shop was nice – warm and light, but in the opposite direction from the office, and from where I was living in Rochester. By chance, a coworker / friend had just gotten his CofO for the house he was building, and his girlfriend at the time decided not to move in with him – so he needed a roommate / renter. He also had 2 bays of his garage that he offered as part of the deal for shop space. And he lived on ~13 acres overlooking Canandaigua Lake. Ideal. For less than I was paying for a 2 bedroom apartment in the city. So I broke my lease, moved my tools and (very) limited furnishings and computer out to a very scenic, amazing little house in the country.

After some more ‘mountain’ biking, which was glorified hiking, wrecking, and full on pegging of my cardio – I really wanted to start riding again. I picked up a Trek X01 cross bike on clearance at a local Rochester bike shop and started doing a ‘half way’ commute. Truck would be parked at the end of Canandaigua Lake and I would make my way up Rt. 332 to the office. It was about 8 miles of divided highway riding. Huge shoulders, just a bit of town traffic, and then a coffee stop and a walk over to the office. Several folks were commuting, so a shower had been put into a storage closet, and folks would stack up bikes on the front porch.

The Trek was twitchy, a size too small (but a good price, for a ‘real’ bike), and aluminum. I rolled on the stock semi knobby cross tires for a bit, then put on some cheap and nearly impossible to mount off brand commuter tires. Added some SPD pedals and fenders, and had a decent commuting rig.

All the while I was doing the half commute I was doing design and project management by day, and some fun projects for friends in my own shop at night. Day time would find me sitting at a desk, on the phone, programming a CNC machine, or losing my mind working on 3d CAD models. Night would find me riding home (halfway) and working with my hands – cutting joinery, building a small piece of furniture, generally getting dirty and dusty.

One of the more memorable projects was at a camp in the Adirondacks. I took a few long weekends (and many late nights) and cut and installed a set of log railings. Everything went over by boat – logs, tools, people. I camped out on the front porch or just inside the living space while working on site. Good friend Chris came up for a long weekend and helped out. Priceless guy time working to the call of loons, eating meals cooked on a backpacking stove, and drinking cowboy coffee watching the sunset on the water.

I was also ‘the single guy’ in the office – so I’d often take on the travel duties for New Energy Works. I drove all over the east coast for projects – Greenwich Connecticut, New Jersey, Hudson Valley, even a job in my native Cleveland. I had a memorable trip for a forgettable project to the Aspen, CO area. We were working on a guest house for a prince that skied in Aspen, and I was project managing the timber components with a local builder. The job was difficult – tricky architect, really good engineer (offered to hire me while we were touring the job site), good builder, horrible construction manager… etc. The builder and I pulled our hair out and all the stops to get things done – so in appreciation he set me up with a fly fishing guide. I caught and released more trout in 3 hours than I had in all my time fishing back east. I actually climbed out of the water an hour early and told the guide I was done. Sort of bored. Every other cast landed a fish. Our local sales rep took me on a few cool hikes while I was in town, and we did the local tour – past Hunter S. Thompson’s house, through a few projects we’d done the year before for people who fell into the 1-2%r category, and dining out at various renowned establishments. Good fun, and the job offer was tempting – especially the chance to be in the mountains – but what a crazy world Aspen is… if I had a trust fund I might have said yes. But I had many reasons to stay out east.

As I gained some fitness I started looking for a mountain bike. I shopped around and tested various brands, and knowing nothing really about riding in the woods I weighed the need for suspension. A friend who rode quite a bit suggested front suspension only – better climbing, and I’d learn bike handling skills. He also suggested I shy away from disc brakes unless I went all in with hydros (this was 2003-2004). I found a Yeti FRO on closeout at a local upstate NY shop and brought home a very nice, very light bike. 26″, disc ready, aluminum. Blue. All the while I was getting my weight under control, and was moving closer to 210 pounds. Diet, exercise, focus. And burying myself in work.

From where I was living I could ride out the door on the property, hit up 2-3 trail networks within 15-20 minute drive, and venture off into the woods further afield. I made it a goal to ride up from the parking lot on our weekly mountain bike ride – and actually did that twice – once as a dry run to see how long it would take – and another time with one of the regular riding group who was training for the Vermont 50.

In the midst of rediscovering the bike, I was also working on a large project for a friend. I was hand cutting a timber frame barn, which would be erected in Ohio. There were 151 pieces, about a half of a tractor trailer load of materials, and lots and lots of work. To family and friends it seemed I disappeared for a long while. I would ride half way to work, put in a full day or more, ride back to the truck, drive home – usually grabbing a bite to eat or something to jam in the oven – and then do layout until the wee hours. Repeat 5 days a week. On the weekends I would do a long mountain bike ride or hike, and then cut joinery until well into the evening. Sometimes into the early morning. My roommate / friend spent much of his time at his girlfriend’s place – so I pretty much had run of the house.

I figured out a ton of stuff when working solo – logistics of stacking large heavy objects for moving and working on by oneself, how to get a shop flow going so I could minimize the heavy lifting, and effective ways to manage layout and joinery, and keep my head sane with all the work I had to do.

I entered what friends dubbed my ‘craftsman warrior monk’ phase. Ride a bit, work all day, ride a bit, work most of the night. Mix in long solo hikes or rides or XC skiing. Repeat. It was good fun, and good for my mental health. I was single, recently divorced, had very few friends nearby, and really wanted to explore my capabilities as a craftsman / designer, as well as get in sync with my body again.

Eventually the inevitable happened while on the mountain bike. After working in the shop most of a Sunday I took off for a ride right from the house to the Stid Hill area. I didn’t bring the cell phone (would have been useless), and I don’t even remember carrying a wallet. I rode some gravel and dirt roads up to a trail, and started climbing. Typical of western NY this was full of rocks and roots – I could have been riding in a creek bed. About 20 – 30 minutes into my ride (all uphill thus far) I spun out on a slab of rock. I was moving about 2-3 mph uphill. I went down, harder than I could have imagined. My left knee hit something really hard. My right foot was still attached to my bike, and I wriggled in pain to free it. I immediately grabbed for my left knee, and had blood streaming down my leg and all over my gloves.

I figured I was pretty much screwed, but with some effort I was able to stand, and I hobbled to the top of the climb, another 1/8 of a mile or so. I opted to walk off the trail and get to a road. My knee was gashed open, and I imagined that I would slowly fill my shoe with blood. Upon getting to the road I had maybe 1/2 mile to the nearest house – so I tried to get on the bike and coast / pedal with one leg. Surprisingly this worked quite well, and instead of stopping I rode downhill on the road back to the house, where my roommate was having dinner with his folks (who owned the house on the edge of the property). I interrupted, asked him if he could drive me into town to the ER, and I refused to move from behind the cabinets as his family was entertaining guests, and food had been served.

He met me down at the house, and drove me to the ER. The triage nurse scrubbed everything clean (hurt like hell), and wrapped me up for the waiting room. As I was sitting the shock and adrenaline wore off and the pain and throbbing moved in. And then in slow motion I watched two ambulances show up at the same time. Car wreck and heart attack. Unrelated, but the triage nurse smiled and suggested I get comfortable – I wasn’t going anywhere, anytime, soon.

By the time they got me in front of a doc it must have been midnight. The doc on call got some pain meds in me, and wanted a second opinion from the orthopedic on call. I was sent off for Xray, and then more waiting. Ortho doc eventually made it down from the hospital and said I was very lucky – another 1/2″ to an 1″ further up my leg, and I would have likely severed some connecting tissues, or cracked my knee cap. They decided to stitch me up, and it was now coming up on 1am. My pain meds were wearing off just as they cleaned and prepped me, so I had the option of waiting about 1/2 hour for more meds to come down, or they could finish the job and I’d be on my way by 2am. I opted to get it done, sans a local anesthetic, and remember not so much the stitching, but the squeezing and pulling on the gash that hurt the most. I used crutches to get to the waiting room, where my roommate was asleep in a chair, and the whole place was shut down. Security let us out, and I came home to sleep away the pain.

I was off any bike for awhile, and it took a good long time before I rode a mountain bike in the woods again. Pretty sure it was like 3-4 years, at least. I got back on the commuter as soon as I could, and eventually did the full commute from the house, on my birthday. It was about 18 miles one way, so I would nab a 36 mile ride every couple of days, until the winter rolled in. I had a laughably underpowered light for the 2 mile 8% descent down to the lake – but I made it all work.

I finished the timber frame project the following summer. I took some vacation time to stage everything in Ohio, and had a family / friend raising, complete with crane, music, and picnic afterwards. My dad was indispensable help, and my friends Chris and Hap provided some much needed carpentry and climbing skills for getting the high work done.

After the project settled down and I paid off the lumber bill and my credit card for some tools and rigging I bought – I ordered something I’d always dreamed of having – a proper, well fit, road bike. I had met a local shop owner, so I had him size me up and do a fit, and they ordered from my childhood hero’s bike company.

To be continued…

Backing up a bit to my time in school, when the riding went dark but the creativity and eye opening began…

My time in art school at the Cleveland Institute of Art was fraught with all things work and school related. I stopped riding my bike, started driving to school – about and hour each way if traffic was easy – and started eating all manner of ‘fast’ and cafeteria food. I worked for a woodworker and carpenter, as well as getting a job as a museum guard (standing around!). I also had a stint in a marketing firm doing graphics work, and teaching as a TA in the Graphics Design department. I put on a ton of weight. I think when I left Cleveland for the New York Studio Program (I was a Sculpture major) I weighed in at 280 pounds. On a 5’8″ frame. That is obese. Gigantic. Very unhealthy.

Moving to the big apple changed things. I discovered my two feet again, and absolutely loved exploring the city. I wandered with my camera and notebooks all over town, when I wasn’t in studio or working for some wonderful artists as a studio assistant. I lived in a dorm / apartment on W. 8th street, a block from Washington Square Park, and had studio space down in Tribeca. The first few weeks I took the subway to and from classes, once I was confident with navigating in the big city I took to my feet for most travel. Near the end of my stay I was wandering on average about 6-8 miles a day, on the weekends far more – exploring over to Brooklyn, up to Central Park, and across the water to Staten Island. I absolutely loved the city – so much so that I decided I would return to graduate school. While at the NYSP I began researching graduate schools in Architecture or Design. I visited Yale, Columbia, Pratt, and researched Harvard, Cranbrook, and others. I settled on wanting to live and work in NYC, so I focused 100% of my attention on Columbia, and their Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Lots to like at the time – they were transitioning from paper to digital, they had a visionary director and set of faculty, and they supported a program for graduates who were skilled to travel to Japan for a woodworking / temple reconstruction internship. Upon leaving NYC I weighed 180 pounds. Somewhere along the way I dropped 6 inches from my waste and 100 pounds. Crazy, for sure. But a small budget, an expensive city, and lots of walking and working got me in fighting form.

I returned to Cleveland, finished my undergrad work, and at some point decided to keep up my fitness and active lifestyle. Cleveland is not a walking city (at least not for someone who was commuting across town for school and work). I convinced a girlfriend that riding bikes together would be great, and she could use hers to commute from where she was living to school and work and back – about 3-4 miles each way. I bought a pair of Trek 720s/820s? or something – all terrain type ‘mountain bikes’. Heavy, steel, mid range components, probably $375 or so each. I put a rack on mine and mounted up a trunk bag and rode some flat pedals with cages for awhile. I would throw mine on the back of the car and ride on the tow path in the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. Good fun, but the couples riding disappointed (never discuss cadence, gear changing technique, or anything else ride related for that matter with a girlfriend), and I got sucked into working as much as I could to pay for school.

I got accepted to the graduate program (even won a small scholarship), and moved back to the city the following fall. The bike came with me, and although it didn’t get ridden often – I did ride from my neighborhood on the upper West Side down to the Battery and over the Brooklyn Bridge. I managed to get it onto the subway a few times to extend my range, and I have a distinct memory of a very cold ride to about halfway across the George Washington Bridge. It was windy, and man that thing can move…

I had trouble with my weight again – too much work in the studio and at school, and too little energy for anything else. I eventually burned out of the program and moved back to Cleveland. I weighed in somewhere around 220 – 230 when I took a job at the Cleveland Institute of Art as a Technical Assistant in the foundation woodshop. Man I missed making things with my hands while away at school. Before the year started I was offered to teach foundation design, and threw myself into my duties in the shop and teaching. I think I was probably the best bargain the school ever had in terms of salary to work ratio – I would teach 2 full days a week, run the shop the rest, and often run the shop at night, after dinner. I managed to pull the shop back from the ashes of neglect, get some new equipment in the door, and have some time for my own work. Until one afternoon when I nearly passed out in the shop monitoring students. I was finding it harder and harder to get up in the morning, and I’d often be short of breath. I knew my weight wasn’t helping… but when I went to see my doc, I learned not only was I back to 260 pounds, but suffering from high blood pressure, and my thyroid was about as whacked as he’d ever seen – levels about 10x lower than normal. I started on meds for my thyroid and worked to lose some weight. Eventually my contract with school came up for renewal, I wasn’t pleased with the offer, and I struck off on my own doing timber frame and woodworking, along with some design and small scale furniture.

This path had me relocating to eastern PA moving barns, then back to Ohio, and eventually to western NY. Along the way I got married to my college girlfriend, and my emotions and my weight were up and down while traveling, working, and trying to make a go of it. I stumbled into a job at New Energy Works Timberframers – starting in the shop (I was interviewed while buying materials for my own work) – and eventually moving up to the design office. There was a group that would mountain bike at the nearby HiTor management area. A couple of the guys convinced me that I could handle the ride – as they usually parked way up top, and ‘rode down’ the trails, shuttling cars, then stopping off for a beer or two.

I brought in my trusty Trek 720/820 something, complete with rear rack and bag, and thought I was going to die. Actually, the guys thought they were going to have to call the EMTs and helicopter me out. ‘Down’ was relative. There were all these ravines and hills and rocks and roots and creeks… well, it was as much a ride as a hike, for me. And the last ripping downhill, in what seemed to be a creek bed, tested my resolve on that bike, as the light faded into evening (we were out way longer than they were normally, on account of me…).

I survived, and actually showed up 2 weeks later, sans rack, ready to go again. The wheels were turning. This was late summer, so we only got out maybe 2-3 more times… but I was already thinking about how I’d like to get back into riding. At the same time these thoughts were entering my head I went through a separation followed by divorce, and pretty much fell into a pit of Guinness drinking and bar food eating that lasted quite a long while. After the dust settled I moved out of Rochester proper and found a place I could have a shop to work in. I also bought a cross bike to use as a commuter. I was doing my own projects at night, managing projects during the day, and sorting out who I was and what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I picked up a one size too small Trek XO-1 at a local Rochester bike shop on clearance. I had a messenger bag, baggy shorts, a couple of clip on lights, and some SPD compatible shoes. I started doing the ‘half’ commute. I’d park my truck about 8 miles from the office, then ride into work and ride back in the evening. 1 road, no turns, wide shoulder for the most part, and 2 lanes each direction, much of it divided highway. Not at all where I like to ride now – but it was safe and relatively easy. And there were a few other commuters – so the owner took a supply closet and had a shower installed. I’d leave clothes in the office, and carry essentials in the bag.

The bug had bitten… and now I wanted to be able to ride up from the bottom of our mountain bike route, instead of shuttling. And eventually be able to ride to and from the office, from home.

To be continued…

My first bike was a Sears banana seat bike, single speed with coaster brake, blue. Was my neighborhood cruiser, and frequently taken off sweet jumps and wrecked. At some point I got a cable turning speedometer on this bike, and I’d watch that thing turn numbers and measure my speed. When the neighborhood kids got ‘dirt bikes’ I somehow came across a saddle to replace the banana seat and must have found some new bars. Keeping up with the joneses and all, dad even let me wrap electrical tape around some carpet padding on the top tube for a ‘crash pad’. I took that bike apart and put it together again (most of the time without help) more times than I can remember…

I eventually grew, and graduated to a bike shaped Huffy Scout ‘all terrain bike’. 10 speed? Dad had it on lay away at KMart and took me to pick it up. Bull moose handlebar. Steel everything. Plastic pedals. Braking power that would be an embarrassment today. I rode that bike everywhere, to softball and soccer practice, lots of D&D and war gaming sessions, friends houses, the library, and took it on my first ‘real ride’ out to Isaac Lake in the Cleveland area Metroparks with a group of 7th or 8th graders and a gym teacher. I think it still has the original tires sitting in mom and dad’s basement.

After recovering from some corrective muscle surgery as a sophomore in my leg, and needing to ride to rebuild strength – I saved up and bought a Raliegh Technium 450 (no pictures that I know of)- blue with early 90s purplish and white stripes. Aluminum, a ‘touring frame’, as I was smitten with escape and adventuring. Something I’m sure had to do with growing up in the suburbs. My parents helped pay for it (was something like $480), and I payed them back from my paper route profits. We bought it at this crazy store that had pool and entertainment stuff on one side (hot tubs, pools, chemicals, etc.) and bikes and other seasonal stuff on the other side. Bizarre. I insisted on getting a bike a size too big for me, which in the end I would regret (like 3 years later), as I thought I was still going to ‘grow into it’. Sadly as a sophomore in high school I was pretty much done growing.

27″ wheels, 6 or 7 speed I think. Wide(ish) tires. Downtube shifters. Eventually I got a white styrofoam ‘Pro-Tec’ helmet and a nice handlebar bag with map case. Had a Zefal frame pump, tool kit, patches, spare tube. I rode that thing everywhere. Lots of local Metroparks rides on it – looping in and around the Emerald Necklace in the Cleveland area, as well as trips to an exotic library the next town over, the comic book / game shop, friends houses, soccer conditioning in high school, and learning to ride on the road. I would eventually abandon the ‘bike path’ whenever practical, but mainly stuck to neighborhood routes or quieter roads in the Cuyahoga Valley (before it was a National Recreation Area and Park, and long before the tow path from Cleveland to Akron was in any sort of riding shape). I discovered padded shorts (my mom thought them indecent, so I often left the house with my soccer shorts over the top). I wish I had the good sense to get a good jersey – but t-shirts sufficed.

The thrill I had every time I discovered a new road, or turned a new corner, or ticked over a new record on my odometer still lives with me today. I collected up some money and did the MS 150 on it from Cleveland to Cedar Point amusement park (and back) on it, as well as countless runs to various friends houses. I even snuck off to meet a few ‘girls’ on it – which usually turned into additional runs or rides (was playing soccer and running track in high school), depending on who I was seeing. It was my escape, and I would sometimes get home from school and ride as far and as fast as I could, while trying to return before nightfall, just to push the limits of where I could go. (And rebel, in a quiet, silly way!)

I had a few good friends that I would ride and adventure with (to me it was always about new roads, adventure, and what might be around the next corner). Semi social outcasts that we were, one year two of us decided to skip our junior dance and spent the day riding. We ended up calling for rescue after walking for several miles due to repeated flats on his bike. (And I should note that his older sister had a really nice steel Nishiki with funny shoes and pedals – man I lusted after that bike.)

I remember the first time I turned 50 miles, remember the time I rode an out and back 75 miler… Eventually I added aerobars – just like Greg Lemond! – somehow I convinced my dad to order by phone from some ad in the back of Bicycling Magazine (internet? what?) I had just started reading about training and riding, fit, gear, etc., when I found a steady girlfriend, got a hand me down car, and started focusing on college. Thats when things started to go dark.

Once I started at the Cleveland Institute of Art I was doomed to long commutes in the car. I was also trying to figure out that weird space between boy and man, and work, to pay my way through school. Being pretty much inept around the opposite sex, and a train wreck in social situations, I stuck my head into my work. No time to ride, nor much desire to, until I plumped up to 280 pounds. I eventually lost that weight walking and walking and walking while living for a semester in NYC on an exchange program. Upon return I convinced a girlfriend that riding together would be fun (very wrong on that count!) and I bought both of us some sort of Trek hybrid / mountain bike. Put a rack on that and it made the trip to grad school with me back in NYC – but didn’t see much use. Weight and stress went up, and I wouldn’t ride again for long while.

To be continued…

The List:

Sears cruiser, banana seat bike

Huffy Scout ‘all terrain’ bike shaped object

Raleigh Technium 450

The Dark Ages

Trek ‘MountainTrack (MountainTrek) 720 or something

The Dark Ages with a Vengeance

Trek XO1 cross bike / commuter

LeMond Zurich, Steel / Carbon

Yeti FRO hardtail

Trek 520 (with full on Ortlieb touring kit)

Independent Fabrications Club Racer, Ti

Redline 925

Surly Crosscheck, Fixed Gear

Bakfiets.nl long (and bought for re-sale 2 other Bakfiets, as well as a few ‘Oma’ bikes from Henry WorkCycles)

Soma Juice 29r

Surly Pugsley

Salsa Fargo