The Purest Expression of the Bike Mechanic

For professional advice, I relied on Taylor, who worked at South Mountain Cycles, a bike and espresso shop in the central triangle of our small town... Taylor was wild-haired and supernaturally lean, and festooned his face with goatees, handlebar moustaches, ironic mutton-chops, and other expressions of his mood. He was somewhere between eighteen and forty, had probably looked that age his whole life, and would continue on ageless, appearing ever in his prime until some magic day late in his life when he'd instantly transform into one of those ancient, crumpled mechanics who sit at the workstands in bike shops like gurus on mountaintops... He was, at least outwardly, enthusiastically living a life focused on a calling that, like a teacher or social worker or nursing-home caregiver, was important but doomed by market forces to a wage most Americans would find untenable, if not unlivable... He was a wrench—the purest expression of the bike mechanic.

Ten Points, Bill Strickland

I was reminded of this beautiful passage yesterday, as I am every time I stop by my first-choice local bike store and this one particular dude is tending the place. I won't mention his name, because I can't be sure he'd be flattered by the comparison. But I have to tell you, the excerpt above is an almost exact description of the fellow. He somehow manages to be surprisingly generous, slightly weird, utterly self-possessed and untouchably cool all at once. He has all the appealing qualities of those young, hip bike-shop employees—without all the annoying condescension and arrogance. I go there almost as much to be around him as I do for the good advice and fair prices.

Lucky me, huh?

July is About Bike Racing

... It blew right through me, then... instantly and decisively... At 37 mph, my elbow and handlebar tapping against a guy I knew little else about except that he was called Ray and he was fast, and both of us trusting our health and our $5,000 bikes to a guy in front of us with an avian nickname, I understood bicycle racing.

You were nothing without the pack. Alone, lacking context, you were neither strong nor weak, not stupid or savvy, not inexperienced or innocent or wobbly or feral or graceful or heavy like unfinished statuary. Two months ago, I was slow because the pack was faster. Tonight I was fast because my pack was slower. The pack created its own context and within the pack that was the only context that mattered. I had eaten sh*t. Paul Pearson, the legendary Animal, was pushing fifty and just a few weeks ago had been telling me how he was picking up cash by temping as a stonemason's assistant. Gibby the Bear, the beloved villain of an entire nation, who'd sown fear and awe into the best professional keirin racers in the world, found himself terrifying Cat 5s in a training race for a shot at a free pizza once a month. The pack didn't care. We were nothing to the pack except the things we did that day.

...For the first time in my life I belonged to something. I was ready to score points.

~ Bill Strickland, Ten Points

"Succeeding at Admitting I'd Failed"

It wasn’t that I faced shame like some brave and noble human, but rather that the racing, the failing at racing, and the succeeding at admitting I’d failed, shone a bright light on the shame that was in me. I mean, there it was: I couldn’t not see it [....] I believe all of us contend with our own personal demons... and that for each of us, our obsessions, whatever they are - bike racing for me, stamp collecting, gardening, or whatever - can teach us all we need to overcome or learn to live with those demons.

- Bill Strickland, interviewed at memorywritersnetwork.com

In my weekly bike-related browsing, I came across this interview with Strickland, executive editor at Bicycling Magazine, and, more importantly, author of Ten Points, a very good memoir that weaves together bike racing, growing up in an abusive family, and lots of other big themes. The book is worth reading in itself, but the interview put the icing on the cake for me. Strickland proves eloquent, honest and incisive.

If you like bikes, thinking, and great writing, don't miss the interview or the book.