50 Fun and Insightful Things I Learned While Running and Riding in New York City

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

photo (1)#50. Citi Bikes are not fast, but they are fun.

#49. Renting a Citi Bike costs $9.00 for 24 hours, but you can buy a season pass for $70 and save a bunch of money.

#48. There are more Schwinn bikes per city acre in New York City than any other place I’ve ever seen the country. Or so it seems.

#47. Bike Fossils are common on the streets of New York, which says that some people give up, move out and leave their frames and bent wheels behind.

#46. The woman with the unidentified accent who happily shook her fists and said “Go, Go!” at the end of my run looked pleased that I smiled and called back, “Yeah baby!”

#45. The man sitting on a step on Delancey Street who spoke what sounded like Polish and pointed at me with a big smile on his face because I looked him the eye said something with an inflection that seemed like it meant, “I think you’re nuts, but if you’re happy so am I.”

#44. Wall Street actually has the type of stones that in Europe would be called pave and would be fun to cycle across if a race were held in that district. Instead what I saw were barriers all around the main buildings to keep people from driving car bombs into the front. What is wrong with this picture?

#43. Running and biking path up the East River is really great from the Williamsburg Bridge to the United Nations building until you take a wrong fork and wind up in a fenced-in cul de sac because it’s rather like you’ve just been put in prison for thinking about getting near the place.

#42. Walking is as good as running in New York, and you pretty much need to do a lot of it to seen anything.

#41. Seeing Jersey Boys was a good brain workout but the actors and actresses must be in pretty damn good shape for that production.

#40. Prayers go out to the actor (Daniel Curry) whose leg got crushed by an elevator during the production of Spider Man, because that snakebit play can’t seem to buy a break but that gives whole new meaning to the old saying “break a leg.”

#39. Women runners own New York City. Especially New York City Running Mama.

#38. Women runners now have fashions that fit their needs, but the cool part is that fashion seems heightened as a rule in NYC.

#37. Passing cyclists while running over New York City’s bridges did not make me feel special or better than anyone. Instead it made you appreciate that people have different goals, needs and brains, and that’s a good thing.

photo (5)#36. It may be true that only the strong survive in New York City, but that means there are more than 8 million strong people in the metropolis. Some of them survive more colorfully than others, that’s all.

#35. Bikes are neither an indication of wealth, a sign or poverty, a commentary on social position or fitness, nor a commodity or necessity in NYC. They just are.

#34. I admit it now. I never “got” what the New York City Marathon was about until I ran under the Brooklyn Bridge after a glimpse of the Verrazano Bridge moments before and went, “Aha. Now I see why it’s so special.” It actually GOES somewhere.

#33. Running in Central Park is not what I expected at all; flat and uninteresting. The pictures on TV never really capture its topography, which makes you realize they must have flattened the rest of Manhattan and it’s rocky terrain

#32. Runners in New York, as a general rule, do not seem to feel the need to  “show off” like they do in other cities by jogging on corners and making a spectacle of themselves.

#31. I literally almost got killed not paying attention on a running trail because it was early in the morning and I shifted left to get onto a path and a black SUV tearing through the parking lot almost ran me down. And that’s New York too.

#30. It’s a tie between the significance of graffiti and tattoos.

#29. A sunrise in New York is free, until you do the accounting of living there.

Dining at Walter's for brunch.

Dining at Walter’s for brunch.

$28. Prices for lunch and dinner were surprisingly reasonable, and the food was excellent everywhere we went. So you’ve got to work out to live and eat in NYC or you’ll get fat.

#27. Living on the 5th floor of a walkup apartment, as my son does, is a pretty damn good way to keep fit.

#26. The Empire State Building is still one of the coolest buildings in the world, and even thought I did not run far enough to actually touch it, it touched me.

#25. New York is a city of relationships, both personal and communal. People were great everywhere I went, and coming home on a Saturday night there were many couples with their heads on each other’s shoulders, buying time in each other’s hearts.

photo (10)#24. The New York City Subway may be the best tool for running diversity ever invented, because you can guiltlessly zip from borough to borough for new running routes and not drive a car around to get there. The air conditioning was working on every train I rode.

#23. I saw at least 50 pretty superb looking cyclists in full racing kits but wondered what routes they ride to get consistent, high-paced mileage without stopping at lights all the time. Remains to be learned. Meanwhile, there were plenty of stylish people riding normal bikes who seemed to be having just as much fun.

#22. Hipsters on single speed bikes were not rare, but not as common as I thought they’d be.

#21. The cyclist I saw delivering Dominos Pizza in a big carrying bag really looked uncomfortable. Riding through vehicle traffic with a big pizza box on your lap is a formula for disaster of one kind or another. A pepperoni slick was not out of the question.

photo (3)#20. Owning a bike in New York apparently does come with the risk of it being stolen. So crappy bikes are popular. Sturdy ones too.

#19. There weren’t as many potholes as I thought there would be. But when I tried to buy a Yankees cap, the smallest size in all the stores was 7 3/4. Do New Yorkers have naturally big heads or something?

#18. Walking down 5th Avenue brought back all kinds of memories of the first 5th Avenue mile when Sidney Maree ran a 3:47 and beat all those world class milers back in 1981, or whatever.

#17. I want to get in shape again and run the 5th Avenue Mile.

#16. The 9/11 Memorial is profoundly, exceptionally conceived and a must-see when you visit New York. Give some money and walk through the lines, it’s worth it. You’ll never photo (2)run off at the mouth about that event in history again.

#15. Someday I’d like to bike a reported loop of 60 miles around the perimeter of New York City. That would feel like you’ve really done something special.

#14. I saw no New York Road Runner’s Club shirts on anyone. Anywhere. Why is that?

#13. It must be pretty freaky to come straight from Kenya and run or win a race in New York City. To quote Stevie Wonder: ”Just like I pictured it. Skyscrapers, and everything…”

#12. Flying in over the south side of the city where the estuaries were at low tide, the birder and nature lover in me had to admit, “This city does not belong here. Nature wants it back.” Which makes you wonder what will happen when global warming hits for real. Sandy proved the point. The subways were flooded.

#11. I could never race up the Empire State Building or any other “race” up all those steps. After a few stories it would remind me too much of being a janitor during college. Then I’d quit, find a mop and lie down with my head on it.

#10. If David Letterman or any other famous person goes for a run around NYC, do people leave them the hell alone?

2010-09-30-JOHNLENNONNYC#9. John Lennon once lived in New York City and reportedly loved it, because people knew enough to give him space for the most part. But the idiot who killed Lennon should never know peace. He doesn’t deserve it. I want to someday run past the place where Lennon lived and Imagine him walking the streets.

#8. My son picked out clothes for me at a store called TOPMAN where I selected shoes that were designed strictly for appearance, not for running. And that’s the point sometimes, in New York City. Fashion statements.

#7. I would like to be a peregrine falcon in New York City, because there’s plenty of meaty pigeons to be eaten. And flying between the buildings would feel pretty cool.

#6. One can’t help wonder who you’d meet if you lived in New York City, and sat in a Starbucks or local coffee house writing your heart out when in walks a person you might photo (13)want to meet. Or it could happen on the street. On the run. On a bike. But something similar happened to me recently in a different way. So I don’t need to imagine, entirely. But I do wish it for you. Or anyone you know. May that silhouette coming in the door turn into something real for you. Or a friend. Love in New York City and beyond.

#5. I love that Sonny Rollins the saxophonist taught himself how to play while rehearsing on the Williamsburg bridge. Happened to read that in Men’s Journal while I was in New York.

#4. Ideally, I think you’d have about 4 bikes to ride around New York. A road bike for speed. A mountain bike for trails. A beater bike for dining and drinking. A single speed for hipster cred, preferably with orange wheels and a green frame.

#3. If there’s anything I’ve forgotten about running or riding in New York City, I apologize. But I reason that I actually don’t know much about the city in 3 days. Of course! And you really do forget more than you recall on such trips. Which is why I often get down to street level to make contact with the world…

photo (7)#2. I love the street level view of any city in the world, but street level photos in New York City seem to mean a little more. Which is why I get down low and try to run across the right view.

#1. All my expectations of New York City were debunked, and all my expectations of New York City were fulfilled. That’s why you go to New York City. To have your expectations shifted. On the run and on the ride. And all points in between.

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Forgiveness on the streets of New York City

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth
Can we have some applause here?

An occasional smile can be forgiven in NYC

By Christopher Cudworth

The last time I was in New York City was at the tender age of 21, but the purpose was not so tender.

My job was to lug 140 lbs. of audio visual equipment up from Philadelphia by train to set up for a presentation at the Chemical Bank building to be given that day by the late Robert Van Kampen, the brains and drive behind the Van Kampen Investments firm he later sold for about $400M to Xerox. Mr. Van Kampen passed away years ago from a condition that hardens the muscles in your body, including your heart, until you die. Which always struck me as a rather ironic event to happen to a devout Christian like Mr. Van Kampen.

But back in 1981 Mr. Van Kampen was at the height of his creative financial powers, and while I am not entirely sure what the mission was that day at Chemical Bank in  New York, I believe it was successful. Mr. Van Kampen was successful at many things in life.

I thought about Mr. Van Kampen while strolling past the Manhattan offices of BNY Mellon, where my son Evan Cudworth pointed out that the firm now manages something like 43 trillion dollars in assets. Mind boggling wealth is just part of the everyday scene in NYC. 

Then my son shared that the middle class in New York City begins at an income of about $274,000. Facts like that can make you wonder what you’re doing there at all. But they should not slow you down. We all have a right to experience what New York City has to offer.  

OWS and 9/11

My son and I also walked by the stone park where Occupy Wall Street set up shop a few years back to protest the actions of bankers and the effects of their fiscal dalliances on the rest of us. It seems that the banksters felt free to run up a few debts and pass along the pain to the taxpayers to bail them out. OWS had problems with that and other exploitative issues, if you recall. But protest is one of the most difficult things in the world to sustain, and the plaza was now empty with the exception of a few folks with cardboard signs with messages scrawled with Sharpie markers. Whether OWS had an impact we will never really know.

But what we do know is that another form of protestor objecting to the actions of financial and political forces in the United States turned two giant skyscrapers into another form of plaza just a few blocks away. Which is why the 9/11 Memorial is now necessary to commemorate the day that Osama bin Laden ordered his minions to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center in the financial district of Manhattan.

A perfect tribute to something lost

The 9/11 memorial is a perfection of sorts. The water flowing into an abyss that follows the footprint of the former World Trade Center is a living testament to the lives that were taken that day. As the water in the lower pool drops down the granite walls into a space where you cannot see the bottom, your heart sinks a little with it. Yet the constant flow of falling water on all sides of the two square chasms soothes your soul.

The memorial reminds one not only of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but of the personal, sinking feeling we can all get in the aftermath of tragedy, and from everyday life. And in that way, the 9/11 memorial is as touching and profound as the Washington, D.C. Vietnam Memorial with its black face cut from the landscape. It is understated, and all the more powerful as a result.

A single rose says so much.

A single rose says so much.

Of course some people are more blessed than others to avoid that black granite feeling and emotions pouring down into the pit of our souls. But there is one serious truth at work in the 9/11 Memorial, because concerns over conspiracy theories are at least temporarily washed away in those moments. All those lives were sucked out of the soul of New York City, which in truth is a really grand and forgiving place if you try at all to bridge the gap between its massive infrastructure to the humanity moving through those spaces.

As we prepared to leave, there was one white rose placed in the name of one of the victims of 9/11. The simple flower calls to mind the need to investigate the pain caused by the event, but also the need to move on. If facts ever do emerge that point to any truth of conspiracy, then our whole nation must be held to account. But we shall see what unfurls, however innocently or not.

Other Messages From New York

Forgive the negative people

Forgive the negative people

The next morning while running across the Williamsburg bridge there was a small bit of graffiti scrawled on the running path. It said: “Forgive the negative people, they learned to (sic) many lies.”

Mixed Messages

“Okay,” I thought, while stopping on my morning run to regard the message, “that’s a whole cycle of thoughts packed into one bit of graffiti.”

Because what does it mean?

If you’re negative, then you’ve learned too many lies? What, the truth can’t do the same thing?

That’s seems to be the whole argument on the World Trade Center bombings. Have we actually gotten to the truth on those events or not? (or JFK, the NSA, or MLK…the list goes on…)

And if we do not have the truth, then what lies have we learned, and accepted? Then, what forgiveness do we need if that is indeed the case? Are we going along with a massive narrative that is not good for us?

Another bridge to truth

A little further up the bike path another writer stopped to express his thoughts. His words read:

And I bike.

And I bike.

“And I bike. Bike so I can understand cuz I understand better when I feel the wind, the sun, the moon. And I know there’s a destination waiting for me abut at this moment I have no destination. And I like it. I like the unknown future, cuz I can feel the present. Feel it with my whole body. So I bike and I observe. And only then. I don’t observ my brain by my heart. In the present. It comes to me, the clarity of the moment. 

So I keep biking to make sure I’m right. And then I don’t bike any more. I just am with my whole body and soul. I just know and I want to scream so everybody could hear me, or maybe I want to hear myself so I could always remember…So I bike. Love. (heart sign)”

It must have taken him some time to write all that down on the path, so he or she had obviously been thinking about it. But true profundity is hard. You have to begin somehow with the basics.

Raising Questions

We can try to grasp what the cyclist who wrote those words is saying, yet they seems to as many questions as answers given.

The first question a cyclist like me wants to ask it this: “Okay, what kind of bike do you like to ride?”

I know, it shouldn’t matter, yet bikes in New York City seem to answer a whole lot of questions, all on their own.

BikeevolutionThere is bike diversity, you see. You have people riding every conceivable type of bike. There are plenty of classy old Schwinns tooling around, of course. They are steel, sturdy and not as theft-worthy. Old bikes are a fine art form, although some seemed to have evolved into abstractions, and left to the elements and activities of New York, they become unridable, unwanted and cast off. Just like some of the people of New York. It’s a common phenomenon. The power of evolution, actually.

There are also slick Colnagos and Pinarellos, as well as people outfitted in full-on cycling kits and people in short shorts, low cut blouses

Running and riding over the Williamsburg bridge.

Running and riding over the Williamsburg bridge.

and tattoos. All ride essentially the same route up and over the Williamsburg bridge toward the New York City skyline and the Empire State Building, anchor of everything New York as far as I’m concerned, as it still juts up proudly from the beauty of Uptown Manhattan.

So you can analyze all you want, but in the end you need to let the bikes people choose to ride answer some questions for you.

The bikes people ride define not who they are, of course, but what they are doing, and why. In the moment. That’s all you can really ask, and expect to get an answer.There’s a lot of city here, you see, and 9 million people minding their own business.

But it is certainly not an unfriendly place as I once imagined. Not by a long stretch.

New York State of mind

Didn’t you imagine it too? That New Yorkers were somehow gruff, confrontational and off-putting. It’s all wrong.

Into this great flow my son has gone to grow. From a small town in Illinois he matriculated through the University of Chicago and now works and lives in New York City. Where he’s always wanted to go. And live.

The path to existence in New York City has had as big an arc as you can imagine for him. The last year for our family was like crossing a Williamsburg bridge built on steroids, with a massive hump of uphill climbing and a bit of difficulty putting the brakes on as things came to a conclusion with my wife’s passing from ovarian cancer.

Running downhill is not easy

You do know that running downhill can be just as difficult and painful as running uphill, do you not? If you don’t, then you haven’t done it with sufficient speed or need. But your thighs and knees can begin to ache, and you just want to lay down for a minute and gather yourself before continuing. And sometimes you do, and it’s hard to get back up and run knowing that the horrid downhill pain still awaits.

I’ve done that run a few times over the years. The Downhill Blues. It’s supposed to be easier, given you’re not climbing any more. But it’s not easier. It’s harder precisely because everyone else thinks it should be easier, made worse by the fact that others might go running past looking as if their actually enjoying themselves running down the back side of a bridge across a big river toward home, whatever you call that.

Citi and New York City Bikes

So my son and I took a ride over that bridge together here in New York City. We rented Citi Bikes which are built for Everyman and Everywoman. They’re neither fast or slow or heavy or light. They just are. With that kind of transportation under your butt, and in a pretty blue color, the road and path and streets and bridges all look inviting. You don’t need a helmet. You don’t need cycling shoes. It’s just you and your butt and legs moving along.

We crossed over into Williamsburg to visit Hipsterland. Had margaritas and tacos at Cafe de la Esquina and then rode home to a nap.

This was New York. Neither Sinatra or Bill Joel sang about any of this stuff, because it is ours, and ours alone. It’s a city that’s about minding your own business and having enough heart to mind someone else’s as well, when the occasion occurs. And that’s pretty often.

Colorful tarsnakes.

Colorful tarsnakes.

On the path across the Williamsburg Bridge I noticed something with subtle significance. It was a set of colorful tarsnakes laced across half the length of the entire bridge. And I thought: “That’s New York in a snippet. Color tarsnakes of existence.”

A Sense of Belonging

I’m glad he’s here. He’s a great son and a good man. I hope he continues to find friendship and love and himself. This big improvisational city is brimming with wealth and dreams, but you have to define that on your own terms. Some people write it on the bike path. Others write it on the sky.

We wrote our connections in the moments we looked into each other’s eyes. New York, New York.

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Remembering to eat healthy, or not

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Those of us who run and ride or do triathlons know that eating healthy is important to good training and performance. That’s what we like to tell ourselves anyway.

So we make healthy eating choices whenever we can. And buy food that fuels our bodies and feeds our minds.

Then we leave the food we have so carefully chosen in the refrigerator for days, weeks, even months where it rots and stinks and festers until we numbly grow aware of its presence, stare at the box or bag that now registers in our present conscience and think, sometimes aloud, “Hey, that’s my food. I better throw it away.”

Remembering to eat healthy, or not

BlueberriesWe’ve all done it. Those blueberries in the company fridge? They look okay but in reality if you open the lid on the plastic box in which they’re encased and actually take a look, you will notice they are actually now petrified blueberries, suitable for display in a museum.

And oh, that chicken you bought separate to put on your over-lettuced salad? Well, it’s been there 5 weeks now. Suddenly you notice that the chicken, though long dead and cooked and tossed in a plastic tray, has begun to look like it is ready to move again. Zombie Chicken. Throw it away too.

Not so perfectly good food

tacoThat taco you bought from Chipotle last week? Wrapped in foil? Toss it, brothers and sisters.

And look at the grease seeping through the brown bag with the Buffalo Chicken Wrap lurking inside! Those grease spots are from the French fries you did not order but which once filled the entire bag. That’s what you get for ordering a simple sandwich from Frankie’s Deli where the Big Guys Who Work Construction all eat. They don’t care about healthy food. Not if those fries are any indication. But at least you threw them all away, or most of them. After all, you cannot entirely avoid French fries if they are within 15 feet of your mouth. You may have a marathon or Ironman to do in two days and have spent months preparing for the event. Who cares? These are French Fries we’re talking about!

FrenchfriesHealthy food hell is French Fries

When someone drops French fries in front of you there is no way to resist. The hell with all those 20-milers and painful “bricks” you’ve completed. These are French Fries we’re talking about people! It won’t hurt to eat just a couple. Or a few. Or a handful. And well, the bag’s almost empty, might as well finish it up.

Expiration dates

So we try for the most part to eat healthy. Then life and poor memory comes along to confuse your health-oriented ego. You forget things in the fridge. Eat things that are perhaps past their expiration date. But most “real” food doesn’t have printed expiration dates.You have to make your own judgments. Like bananas. You can tell when they’re shot by the spots. And apples. Wrinkles give them away. Peaches. Don’t touch ’em if they squish. Raspberries and strawberries? That fuzz is a big giveaway. Toss them in the trash.

Paying the price

Hopefully you never have to pay the ultimate price of trying to eat healthy when the food is too old. Food poisoning is no fun. I can personally attest to that. You may not trust me for any other advice on running, riding or triathlons, but you can trust me on one thing. Barfing 27 times in one night and losing 7 pounds when you only weighed 140lbs at the time on a six-foot frame is absolutely no fun.

Tossing your cookies is hard

Go easy on your conscience and accept that once in a while you’re going to forget to eat the food you put in the fridge for another day. That day has come and gone folks. Time to accept facts and move on, lest you eat something bad and have to move something else a little quicker than you like. As in the full trots. Heaving till you’re dry. Tossing your cookies.

But have you actually ever really tried to throw out a bag of cookies? It’s really hard. We have more bags of stale cookies in our cupboards than Fort Knox has gold. I’m pretty sure a couple of those bags have moved with me ever since I was a kid growing up in Eastern Pennsylvania 40 years ago. They didn’t print expiration dates back then. That’s how I know. But some night when I’m really hungry and should know better I’ll reach in that bag and pull out a Ginger Snap that should be in the Smithsonian and actually eat it, perhaps by dunking it in a glass of Ginger Ale to give it that little zingy taste of carbonation that goes so well with the ginger. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, and stale Ginger Snaps are great for dunking.

Pressure drop

You’re trying to eat healthy and it’s hard to remember that all on its own. Don’t put too much pressure on your brain by trying to remember if that crap in the fridge is yours or someone else’s to dispose. Give it two more days and give it the heave-ho, lest you heave and ho some other way that you would rather avoid.WeRunandRideLogo

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Not going nowhere

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

For SA

When the streets are empty going Nowhere is a beautiful thing.

When the streets are empty going Nowhere is a beautiful thing.

One simply must love a double negative. The phrase “I’m not going nowhere” for example, actually means the opposite of what we normally intend it to say.

Because if you’re not going nowhere, you’re going somewhere.

Which perfectly describes what all of us do when we run and ride. And swim. Eeks.

When you head out the door on your favorite 5-mile running loop, you’ve been there before. So you’re not going nowhere. You’re going somewhere.

But because you’re not changing destinations, you technically are going nowhere. From a Google Maps sort of perspective.

30,000 foot view

Zap yourself up to 30,000 feet like you can on Google and every run and ride we do is someplace rather nowhere. We cycle and run and swim around in little circles every day. Which is nowhere.

Making all his Nowhere plans for nobody.

Making all his Nowhere plans for nobody.

John Lennon had it right again when he sang: “He’s a real Nowhere Man, living in his Nowhere Land, making all his Nowhere plans for Nobody.”

Around and around. Getting nowhere it seems. But while Lennon’s song seems to be critical of Nowhere Man, there is a positive side to going Nowhere.

Because that somewhere is a salvation of sorts. Because those who do not run or ride or swim (eeeks) are not getting the same benefits in health and mental exercise. They’re the ones who are technically going nowhere.

Going Nowhere slowly. It’s all good.

I see people who walk every day and they deserve credit too. It’s not all about speed, but motion. Going nowhere constructively is a healthy thing for all of us.

Even if we take the same route every day, as some are wont to do, there is a fine art to our nowhere wanderings. Not going nowhere is such a beautiful thing that way.

Our little journeys give us release. From stress. From worry. From sitting home doing nothing and really getting nowhere. That’s the happy tarsnake of going to the trouble of working out. We may be going nowhere, but we’re getting somewhere.

Labels for Nowhere

Then there are goals beyond getting nowhere constructively. 5K. 10K. Half marathon. Marathon. Ultra Marathon. Sprint Tri. Olympic Tri. Half Marathon 70.3. Ironman. The list goes on and on.

Sue Astra (left) Nowhere Man Chris (center) and Lida Kuehn (right) winners of the team Sprint Tri in Naperville.

Sue Astra (left) Nowhere Man Chris (center) and Lida Kuehn (right) winners of the team Sprint Tri in Naperville.

Recently a friend swam a 5K race in a lake in midstate Illinois and placed high. The next day she led off the swimming leg of a sprint tri. Her team won. Technically she didn’t “get” anywhere, but the nowhere she got sure felt good. Way to go Lida!

Going nowhere fast

The best nowhere I’ve ever gotten was a 10K on a 55 degree morning in Oak Park, Illinois. From the moment the gun went off starting the race I knew I was going to win. I’d worked it all out in my head and was fit as could be. I raced through the streets with the effort fully imagined, but all new. There were puddles reflecting the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture for which the race was named. I moved across this world of dual imagery as if it were everywhere I wanted to be. Crossing the line first was definitely as nowhere as one could ever want.

Imagining Nowhere. What do you want it to be?

It’s our memories and imaginations, you see, that make not going nowhere so beautiful. Memories of past runs and rides, and imaginations of what it will be like to move again across the landscape of the nowheres that mean so much to each of us.

We’re not going nowhere together, you and I. And it feels nice.

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What’s bugging you on the run or ride?

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Every summer while running and riding there seems to be something new and annoying that comes along to bug you from one end of the season to the other.

Itching to run and ride

A simple itch can make you crazy when you run or ride.

A simple itch can make you crazy when you run or ride.

For me one summer it was itchy clothes. No matter what garment I chose to wear that year it seemed there was some sort of seam or tag or zipper scratching or digging into my skin to cause an itchy spot that did not respond to scratching. Itchiness is not good. It is distracting and that can take away from your effort.

It can also be a safety risk. One day while riding I was fussing with a tag just above my shorts line and while reaching back, I had just one hand on the handlebars when a giant truck filled with 8” metal pipe came whooshing past. The air compression of that heavy, giant truck passing at high speed pulled me half a foot into the lane. Thanks to my itching and scratching with that tag on my shorts, I was not in a good position to fully control the bike when the truck came by.

Wasp attacks

Out to get you.

Out to get you.

I survived the summer of itchiness only to ride head-on into the summer of bee stings the following year. Yellow jacket wasps suddenly had it in for me. While cycling I got stung twice on the same spot of my face within a two week period. There I was, pedaling along at 20mph in a group ride when a yellow jacket came into my riding path and clung to my face like Tom Cruise in an action movie. Then he stung me. It happened again a week later, and that sting hit a tender spot in the middle of my face, which swelled thanks to that skanky stinger poison those wasps inject when they go on the attack.

And the wasps wouldn’t quit bugging me even when I wasn’t on the bike.

I got stung four more times that summer, however. Not all while riding, grant you. But I did get stung on the arm while running. By my calculations 45% of my bee stings came while running and riding, with no explanation except that I got in the way of bees and wasps that had nothing better to do. Which is entirely random, if you ask me.

Except it wasn’t. A couple of those stings came while cleaning gutters on my house where a small colony of wasps had built a nest under the protection of the shingles and gutter guard. When I popped open the plastic two guard wasps came flying out to protect their home and nailed me on both sides of the face. Again my reaction was instinctual. I jumped off the ladder and stood there rubbing both my cheeks. “What the f***?!” I hollered.

Gnat hard to swallow

Good protein.

Good protein.

This summer it has been gnats and smaller insects on the attack. I have swallowed at least 8 bugs this summer. For a minute you try to gack up the bug but it won’t come out.  Then you must proceed with the ignominious task of actually washing the bug down with some Gatorade or water. If they taste bad, and some do, you gladly eat the bug to get rid of the taste. But the idea of eating a bug still isn’t that appetizing in our part of the world.

Cyclists and runners almost universally pronounce the benefits of eating bugs however. “Good protein,” they’ll say, as a good-natured way to rib you about eating some insect matter.

Gnatella

Gnats are almost unavoidably ingested. You hit a cloud of those buggers and five or six of them can wind up in your gullet. Spit and cough and one or two might come out, but the rest become breakfast, lunch and dinner.

They also get in your eyes even if you’re wearing shades. It’s an odd thing to ride for 20 miles knowing there’s a fat little bug in your eye. You pick them out later with the tip of a finger and pitch them in the wastebasket. The biologist in me asks whether a gnat in the eye constitutes either a symbiotic or parasitic relationship.

Defiant little buggers

Perhaps the final thoughts in the small minds of a bee or a gnat are vindictive cries of defiance. The bee gets revenge with a sting, and the gnat does it’s best Mel Gibson imitation screaming like the character William Wallace in the movie Braveheart, shrieking in its high gnat voice, “Freeeedooooooommmmm!”

I know that doesn’t make any sense. I just like to think of that little gnat with wild hair and blue makeup charging across the gnat battlefield to challenge the cycling or running world to a duel. It is noble. It is good. If a gnat gives it life for the cause of gnat freedom, who are we to question its moral character?

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It pays to think about these things in symbolic terms when things really are bugging you. Because whether it’s itchy clothes, angry wasps or freedom-seeking gnats, the things that bug you most can seem so senseless and random.

Ever had something bugging you on the run or ride? Feel free to write. It helps to get it off your chest, literally and figuratively. Leave a comment below. 

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Cancer Rocks like you never imagined

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

This it the 300th post on We Run and Ride. Thank you for your readership. 

As one who has never been afraid to write about cancer and the effects it has had on our family with the loss of my mother to pancreatic and my wife to ovarian cancer, it might seem counterintuitive to proclaim that Cancer Rocks. And you might wonder how it relates to running and riding. But hang tight, and we’ll explore that together…

No, You Rock!

Road features made of tar.

We use the term “You Rock!” to describe so many things.

Win a volleyball tournament? You Rock!

Nail your cello solo? You Rock!

Finish a marathon, a half marathon or a triathlon? You definitely rock…

Earn that promotion at work? You Rock! You Rock! You Rock!

Deceptive words

But such enthusiasm can be deceptive. Our proclamations really are sort of a dismissal, if you think about them in any depth. The term “You Rock!” is often shorthand for “Don’t tell me any more! I’ve just given you the ultimate compliment.”

And what is that? You Rock.

Which eclipses all other conversation about the subject.

A partial eclipse

Cancer Rocks in a different way than that because after all, most people would say cancer does not rock, Cancer Sucks.

Cancer makes people sick and kills them. And that does sort of “suck” whatever that means, because there’s not really much we can do about cancer even though we’ve spent billions developing research and treatments that cure some people but leaves others to rot away and die. It’s harsh and it sucks, if you insist on colloquializing it.

Our shallowness in saying Cancer Sucks is about as meaningful as uttering the phrase Cancer Rocks. Those bookends don’t begin to tell the full tale of courage shown by people trying to live their best through nearly barbaric treatments. What it comes down to is this: the people seeking to help those stricken with cancer are pretty much at a loss for words. So we lean on words like “Cancer Sucks” to get us through the awkwardness of not knowing what the hell else to say.

It’s the tarsnake of conversation about cancer.

Unformulaic

So you have to shake up the formula to get past the Cancer Sucks and Cancer Rocks levels of consideration to reach something substantive about the subject of cancer.

Having served as direct caregiver to two loved ones who died from the disease, and having witnessed their determined hope right up until the end, I base my observations on an intimate but limited experience with cancer as a condition.

I got to know enough other people with cancer in waiting rooms to reveal a truth behind it all. Cancer is its own reality.

Dealing with that reality is the part we find hardest to grasp.

Unreality

We essentially lost a hero in that regard with the downfall of one Lance Armstrong, who failed the image he’d built up and the example he’d set when it was revealed that he was doing a bit of cheating all those years he won the Tour de France.

His Livestrong Foundation remains an inspiration to many apart from his apparent disgrace as a doped up cyclist. He’s the ultimate poster child for the opposing worlds of Cancer Sucks and Cancer Rocks. He’s essentially shown us how tough it is to draw a clean, clear line of demarcation between the bookends of treatment and success. There is tremendous value in that if we are willing to grasp it.

Life changing

Lance claimed that cancer changed him in significant ways. His motivation to ride (and to live) after cancer pulled him through. Only during the absolute depths of chemo did he lose some degree of hope. When you’re just trying to survive, climbing to the top of a mountain you might say, the vision of hope is just as important as the prognosis. I know that for sure, because I’ve seen it firsthand.

Perhaps Armstrong might never have reached the heights he did without the depths of cancer to scratch free the bonds of anger hemming in his soul. We will never know the answer to that question, just as we will likely never know how much his doping actually helped him win 7 times at the Tour de France. It is impossible to separate the effort he put out from the drugs he put in.

Opposites attract

You could say the same of many people in cancer treatment. How do you separate or categorize the courage of one person who survives cancer treatment with the effort of another who succumbs? Every circumstance is different. To claim that one person was braver than another is passing a complex and dismissive brand of judgment. And that’s ugly territory.

Cancer isn’t just one thing, anyway. It is a disease of many forms even within one person.

My mother started treatment for lymphoma over a year before she learned of the fatal pancreatic cancer beneath it all. The chemo she took to combat the disease caused a stroke. And she died. Cancer didn’t kill her. But it did rock her world in a bad way.

My wife began treatment for ovarian cancer in 2005. She took everything they threw at her to put it into remission. 11 grueling chemo treatments. Surgeries. And it came back. We hit it again with a regimen just as strong. And it came back. It came back again and again and again. It rocked her world in all the wrong ways. Finally it showed up in her brain, and the doctor’s said, “Hmmm. It’s not supposed to do that.”

Ya think?

Tending the rock garden

All she wanted to do was live without cancer as the foundation of her existence. So she gardened and taught preschool and loved her family.

Maybe that sounds familiar to you? Perhaps you know someone else with cancer and a similar story. You might have lost them to eternity as well. And what do we make of that?

As a caregiver I can only tell you my personal experience, and what it now means to me.

I feel like I crawled out from underneath a rock after 8 long years of worry and strain. I could feel guilt for feeling better or I could be grateful that we survived as long as we did. Cancer rocked us this way and that. It rocked our finances. Rocked my employment. Rocked our family and friends. Rocked our marriage, but we held strong in faith and fidelity.

Yes, Cancer Rocks all right. It rocks you in ways that equate to throwing someone under a bus or in front of a train. You might not get hurt at all. Or you could get destroyed.

My perhaps naive take is that our blessings were indeed fulfilled while she lived. We had help. We made the best of it. When it is all said and done, however, one must move on. There is no other choice.

Acknowledgement

You must simultaneously acknowledge that cancer changes you in ways that perhaps nothing else can. Is it ironic or inevitable that some of those changes turn out to be for the better?

Originally bitter people can come to appreciate life through their experiences with cancer. Faithless people might find God, if that’s their bent. Lives are changed. Cancer rocks that way too. It goes both directions.

We just don’t like to think that much about the fact that it might have positive effects on us.

Gun to our heads

It’s like that character in the Flannery O’Connor story, a grandmother who bitches her way through life until she witnesses her entire family slain before her by feckless thieves on rural backroads.

With a gun held in her face she repents and speaks kindnesses to the murderous men. They pull the trigger anyway. One turns to the other and says (in paraphrase): “She would have been a good woman with a gun to her head her whole life.”

It’s that way with cancer. It’s the gun to our collective heads. We can either be better people for it or we can let it consume us entirely.

Like the old woman spitting invectives through the veil of her bitterness, the ugliness of cancer is ultimately shallow. We all die sooner or later. Life is a pre-existing condition, and nature doesn’t view it as all that precious.

So Cancer Rocks, in that it reveals strange truths about life.

Of course Cancer Sucks for the same reason.

It’s what you choose to make of that apparent dichotomy that matters. We run and ride to sort out the difference, and to make a difference where we can.

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Grasping age-related athletic reality does not mean stopping in your tracks

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

Having teammates can be a fun motivator for better performance...at any age.

Having teammates can be a fun motivator for better performance…at any age.

When you haven’t run a 5K or any other kind of running race in a while, there are all sorts of things that go through your head as you warm up. You wonder about your training prep. Was there enough speed thrown in? Should you have done even faster intervals? More intervals?

The questions are classic, and nothing novel about them. Every runner has doubts leading up to a race. There are probably only a few times in every runner’s career where you step to the line with almost absolute confidence. Even that is a risk. Running has a way of humbling even the most prepared athlete.

Comparative challenges

The odd part of racing these days is the comparative challenge of figuring out what’s possible when your PRs are so considerably faster, set at a much younger age, and you don’t know what the deleterious effects of age really are? How much do you typically lose in 5K speed over a 30 year period?

Playing soccer in my late 40s, there were frequent questions about how old (or young) I really was. Those were compliments of a sort. Compared to the other players on the field, I was not any slower, and that was amazing to players 10 or 15 years younger.

I took pride in that fact until my son showed up to play one weekend. His speed was obvious on the field. He was a full gear faster than any other player in the 30 and over league. At 20 years old he had the same build and frame that I once possessed, and he was quick and aggressive. In other words, he gave me a glimpse into my former self. He scored goal after goal that day, while I had but one, a volley off the front of the box that required no speed at all.

You go to war with the Army you have…

But like the militarily dismissive prognosticator Donald Rumsfeld once said, “As you know, ah, you go to war with the army you have—not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time…”

Not exactly a confidence builder, that Donald. But that’s how most of us do feel on the battlefields we choose to face in athletic competition. We can’t change the fact that age diminishes our skills and our endurance. Ultimately there is a decrease in performance compared to running during our athletic peak.

Renewed interest

So when I ran a 21:51 5K leg on the tail end of a triathlon race recently, it was cause for a certain sort of celebration. Of course my PR at 5K is 14:45, about 6 minutes faster for the distance.

But it wasn’t like you could not see that coming. Practical intervals were good predictors on how fast I could legitimately run. My max interval pace was 1:30 for 400 meters, or 6:00 per mile pace. That’s not a tremendous strain to do, but going faster would create some real stress. During each interval, passing the 200 meter mark at around 45 seconds, it occurred to me what a fine line it is between what I used to run and what I can run now. At peak fitness for a 14:45 5K, I once did 8 X 400 at an average of 63 seconds or 4:12 mile pace. Now I can probably do 8 X 400 at 1:33 or 6:12 pace. I’m literally two minutes per mile slower, more than one full lap, than I was 30 years ago.

How much can you improve? 

Run and ride hard. Enjoy it. Grasping reality is not the same as stopping in your tracks.

Run and ride hard. Enjoy it. Grasping reality is not the same as stopping in your tracks.

I expect to improve some, but how much is impossible to predict. Age is simply an unknown factor.

Except that it isn’t. The 55-59 age group 5km record is owned by Vic Heckler of Park Ridge, IL. He ran 16:07 in September of 1997. The 8km record is held by Norm Green, now of Naples, Florida. But I raced against Norm on the road race circuit in eastern Pennsylvania in the early 1980s. He was an age phenom even then, and he managed to run 27:00 for 8km (almost 5 miles) in January of 1990.

The 10km record for ages 55-59 is 32:27 by Jim O’Neill, set in 1993. O’Neill also holds the 10 mile masters 55-59 age group record of 54:25.

Good old Norm Green set the Half Marathon record of 1:10: 23 for the age group back in 1987. That time happens to beat my all-time best when I was at peak fitness. I ran in the mid-1:10s as well. At age 24.

The marathon record for 55-59 year old males is 2:33:49 by Norm Green, who seems to have secured his place in American distance running history.

Women’s age group marks

The women’s marks are similarly impressive. Shirley Matson set the women’s 55-59 record of 18:32, the 8Km at 30:10 and a few other marks including the Half Marathon of 1:23:09. G’ job Shirley!

S. Rae Baymiller owns the Marathon record of 2:52:14 and several other records as well.

If you want to see how you compare to road racing records for your age group, it’s rather fun to look at the USA Track and Field website.

Apparent limits and perceived efforts

The point here is that all of us sooner or later do face some apparent limits in terms of age group pace and time. The fact that 14:45 is no longer possible for me should not deter the effort, however, of getting fit enough to compete well in age group competition. You have to swallow a little competitive pride at the start when the younger athletes take off at 5:00 pace. But who says running 6:45 the first mile is the pace of a slug?

That’s what happened as I took part in a triathlon relay. Even forcing myself to slow down resulted in a faster pace than I’d planned in the first mile. Then came a 7:00 middle mile, followed by a 7:15 third mile. Not exactly even splits, but not having raced in a while meant that most of the sensations were new all over again. The flirting twitch of a potential side stitch. The reminder to stay on the midfoot and stay smooth. It all worked. The race felt fluid and smart. And I knew I could do it. That’s a great sensation too. When you hit your goal it is satisfying even if that goal is not what it might have been 30 years ago.

It’s true in cycling too. Most of us are not thinking about age on the group ride or even when racing a criterium. You don’t have time. You have to think about cadence and bike position and keeping in the draft. Only when you’re done do you have time to worry about who you were riding with. Even then it doesn’t matter. We all work to keep up or get ahead. Competing as you get older (and that happens without exception) is the tarsnake of competition as a rule. Sooner or later, you must accept some limits.

Worried about diminished performance relative to younger athletes?

Not me. Not anymore. I still like the feeling of getting on the track at twilight and running as fast as I can go for 400 meters or a mile. I’ll never run a 60 second 400M again. I know that. But grasping reality does not need to be the same as stopping in your tracks. Not by a long shot. And not in the long run.

We Run and Ride. So do you. Let's share original thoughts.

We Run and Ride. So do you. Let’s share original thoughts.

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Coming full circle on Schwinn

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Monte Wehrkamp and Christopher Cudworth

SchwinnFitness-quality-sealExactly what is a Schwinn? This family-owned Chicago bike company grew and became the zeitgeist of a generation with bikes called Stingrays that often featured banana seats. Whether single speed, 3-speed, or 5-speed, the banana seat and ape hanger bars captured the hot rod, muscle car craze in America at the time and gave to us young boys the hope, however slim at times, of actually being cool.

Remember the colors? Orange Crush. Candy Apple Red (that’s the one I got for Christmas). Perfect. 

Then Schwinn launched the concept of bike as transportation in America by bringing us the 10-speeds like the Varsity. Sure, there were Columbias and other brands of bikes, and later Raleighs won a certain zeitgeist as well, but it was Schwinn who originally drove the consumer bike market with their Varsity line — much like how GM dictated the entire car market when they accounted for fully half of all American sales up through the early 70s. 

To accommodate a not so Tiny butt. It's basic geometry. Put part of the seat under the "sit bones."

To accommodate a not so Tiny butt. It’s basic geometry. Put part of the seat under the “sit bones.”

Alas, Schwinn began to suffer under its own weight, literally. The bikes were being outclassed by imports, which were also cheaper. Schwinn found it impossible to compete price-wise with its Chicago-built bikes vs those from Taiwan and Japan. The European bikes, while more expensive, were made by master race bike builders utilizing Campagnolo components, so Schwinn was getting beaten in the race bike market as well.

So Schwinn sought to find a partner – someone overseas with cheap labor but a good manufacturing base. Someone they could teach bike building to, then import these Schwinn-Approved (and branded bikes) to the US to compete with Japan Inc. They found a company in Taiwan, sent over designers and engineers from Chicago, tooled up their plant, taught them how to build very good bikes.

In the meantime, Schwinn closed down Chicago but kept their custom shop in Waterford, Wisconsin, where the hand-made Paramount was built.

paramountThe Paramount was Schwinn’s answer to the Euro race bikes. Top end components. Lustrous paint. Race geometry. But too expensive. Some of us settled for the last US built Schwinn race bikes built that were a step below Paramount. Shared geometry, but with slightly heavier tubing and instead of Campy components, the next-level Schwinns were fitted with Suntour (now making a comeback today) components. 

But for Schwinn, it was apparently all too late. They’d lost too much market share. Their brand name, which was once very much in their favor, became known for stationary exercise fan bikes. Independent bike stores became the trend and the old Schwinn bike store locations, with their perceived fuddy-duddy Schwinn bikes, slowly closed, or re-opened selling other brands, like start-ups Trek and Cannondale, and the European invasion – Calnago, Bianchi, Willier, to name just a few. 

Schwinn launched a new ad campaign. The creative director that worked on it took off six months from work and rode bikes. Marin County, California. Hung out with the mountain bikers. Learned the culture. The language. Came back and wrote brilliant stuff. Great ad campaign. But too late. Schwinn went bankrupt. Closed its doors. 

Today, Schwinn, the brand, is owned by a Chinese investment group and they slap the Schwinn logo on mass-produced assembly line bikes that are sold mostly in Walmart.

The ultimate child ride: A red Sting-Ray

The ultimate child ride: A red Sting-Ray

They’ve started to build up a decent line as well, mid-price point, mostly sold through Performance Bike and their subsidiary.  Those bikes are sold by Nashbar (Famous Maker No-Name Bike, they call them). They even brought back the Paramount name for awhile. Didn’t stick. No young riders today remember Paramount and what it meant. Toward the end of the product run last year, you could get a new Dura-Ace gruppo’ed carbon Paramount for under $1500. Incredible bargain, but no brand recognition. 

The Waterford, WI plant never closed. A Schwinn grandson runs it to this day, and if you want a custom fit, custom built steel bike, you won’t go wrong having Waterford build you a dream bike. 

Vestiges of the original Schwinn also lives on in Taiwan. The manufacturing company Schwinn selected to build their bikes — the one that learned from the original Chicago Schwinn engineers and designers — is still going strong today. They go by the name Giant, and they build both recreational and world-class bikes used by pro road and mountain and cyclocross teams all over the world. 

So Schwinn, in a way, lives on. Just like its old bikes, made in Chicago many decades ago. 

 

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The geometry of a Schwinn bike

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

About the only math subject in which this art major ever excelled was geometry. So I understand the basics of how geometry works. Or at least I think I do. There are shapes. They behave or are formed by certain rules. Those rules relate to mathematics. There is a certain predictability to those rules if you pay attention to the numbers.

The classic geometry of a Schwinn bike.

The classic geometry of a Schwinn bike.

The same thing goes for bikes. As a rule, bike geometry has not changed all that much in the last 100 years. You have a crankset at the bottom where the pedals are attached. A chain leading to the rear hub. That’s what makes it go. Then there’s the rest of the frame, which typically forms a sort of triangle, for strength, with the front and rear forks holding the wheels. Then you have handlebars and a seatpost.

If you accept this premise as basic bike geometry, then your prejudices toward the modernization of bikes will not sway you from the value of a classic bike. In yesterday’s story about a Schwinn Varsity that moved to a new owner, the bike symbolized something important in life. That is, the weight of our being can be tough to carry. Meanwhile, it works the opposite way as well. Sometimes the things we bring into our lives, or the things that get dumped on us at times, have to be carried as well. That’s what the Beatles were talking about when they sang those lyrics at the end of Abbey Road, side two.

“Boy….You’re gonna carry that weight, a long time…”

But everything is relative, and how you carry that burden can determine how you view the burden, and what it is in life that slows you down, or not.

Tiny, also known as Kevin, stands with his Schwinn.

Tiny, also known as Kevin, stands with his Schwinn.

Which is why I was so fascinated to meet a guy named Tiny.

He’s anything but tiny. His real name is Kevin, but I don’t know any more about him other than what he told me about liking to ride his newfound friend, a Schwinn bike that had been sitting in the garage of a friend. The friend was going to give the bike away or sell it, and Tiny decided he wanted that bike. “I’ve always liked to ride,” he told me outside the Walgreen’s store in Batavia where he’d parked the bike while going inside to get some cigarettes and a Gatorade. “So I asked him for the bike.”

That Schwinn bike has what can only be called a classic bike geometry. The bottom tube is 8″ down from the top tube on the front tube. Makes a big triangle, that.

The bike is also constructed with very thin metal tubing. It almost looks frail by comparison to today’s fatter, sleeker carbon fiber bikes. Even the most basic road bike models have elongated shapes in the tubing. The better to mount the logos of the bike makers?

To accommodate a not so Tiny butt. It's basic geometry. Put part of the seat under the "sit bones."

To accommodate a not so Tiny butt. It’s basic geometry. Put part of the seat under the “sit bones.”

Tiny loves his Schwinn. He’s put a new seat on it. “That’s to make my butt fit,” he chortles. He also hung a sturdy wire basket on the front so he can carry shit around if he likes. And he likes.

Standing with a sheen of sweat on his body and dripping from his head, it was obvious Tiny had ridden hard enough to get some exercise. He makes no pretense about his size. He carries his weight with personality and panache. Some of it may go away, that weight, if he keeps riding a lot. But not likely. Some people move through life and carry that weight in a sphere of their own. They are happy doing what they are doing. No amount of lycra would change them. Nor would a bike with a different, more radical or race-oriented geometry.

Because it turns out that for some people, life is not a race at all. They get from Point A to  Point B faster or slower, and it doesn’t matter to anyone but them. Then they go from Point B to Point C, closing the loop for that day, and the next. Their geometry is different, you see, from the Strava and the like. Their internal maps are all they ever want. And a Schwinn is plenty capable of taking them there.

It’s classic geometry.

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The Journey of a Schwinn Varsity Bicycle

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Christopher Cudworth

By Christopher Cudworth

The classic Schwinn Varsity.

The classic Schwinn Varsity.

In 1968 the Schwinn Varsity was one of the “must haves” among bikes in North America. Heavy and durable, yet racy with drop handlebars and an actual 10-speed derailleur, the Schwinn Varsity knocked it out of the park as an object expression of cycling freshness and freedom.

Seeing the world on a Huffy 3-Speed

Confined to a Huffy 3-speed during my teen years, it was raw jealousy that haunted my heart when riding with my friends from wealthier families who actually owned a Schwinn Varsity. My buddy Eeker (a nickname) possessed a yellow Schwinn Varsity with those industrial-looking pedals and the tightly taped drop handlebars. On the rare occasions when I was allowed to ride his bike, the speeds were confusing because the most I knew about shifters was the little thumb tab on my Huffy 3-speed. The Schwinn had levers and if you didn’t know anything about derailleurs it was like a complex algorithm trying to figure out how to shift gears. Yet finally you’d grab one and pump your damned legs and the thing would really go. Sure, the Schwinn Varsity weighed about 40 lbs, give or take a dozen, but once you got rolling momentum would take you quite a ways.

Sports marketing mystique

Like a pair of Red Ball Jet sneakers, part of the mystique of Schwinn bikes was the perception of its brand. So we all learned an early lesson in sports equipment marketing, because everyone I knew wanted a Schwinn 10-speed bike. The lust for a piece of athletic equipment is sufficient at times to outstrip all rationality. Our yearning for play exceeds our capacity for self-control.

Many more sports marketing lessons would be learned in a life in athletics. Nike. Adidas. Reebok. Brooks. New Balance. Tiger/Asics. Tinley. Sporthill. Livestrong. On and on we go.

But the Schwinn Varsity was one of the first brand lusts of the modern era. We were innocent partners in an industry that would grow and grow over the last 40 years. Trek. LeMond. Scott. Felt. Orbea. Cervelo. You can almost feel the bikes changing underneath your butt as you ride them. Trickle down technology works from the ground up. But the Schwinn Varsity was something of a beginning.

Inheritance

Hidden in the garage for nearly 30 years.

Hidden in the garage for nearly 30 years.

My late wife owned a Schwinn Varsity with a silver paint job. She told of riding that bike around the neighborhoods of Addison, Illinois, and sneaking away on the freedom it gave her in her teens. Really, it felt like a Schwinn Varsity could take you anywhere.

One day while riding up the narrow strip of asphalt called Woodale Road, a passing truck clipped her with its passenger side mirror. The mirror knocked her off her bike, tore off her shirt and caused a massive gash on her left shoulder. The truck stopped and the driver stood around sheepishly until she could be carted off bloody and scared to the hospital for treatment. The trucking company paid her bills in those days, but nothing more. In the late 1960s society was not so attuned to the idea of recompense for pain and suffering. At least not for her.

Damage done

The accident made it tough for her to ride a bike on the road the rest of her life. We kept that Schwinn Varsity all those years. It hung in various dusty, hot places in the garage as we moved a few times. Finally the Scwhinn came to rest high up on a set of wooden rafters in our home. The light reflecting off the garage floor would often illuminate that silver Schwinn Varsity, and occasionally I would take it down just to admire its finish, and its heft. It weighed a ton, but I’d ride it up and down the street with its dry-rotting tires just to see what it felt like to ride a Schwinn Varsity again.

Changing gears. Changing years. 

It is funny how the objects of your early desires in life can come to feel like a burden once circumstance and technology enter in to change the world. Despite the fact that some people might feel the Schwinn Varsity was a perfectly good bike, my wife refused to ride it. The seat was uncomfortable. The bars were dropped too low. It was creaky and dangerous feeling.

To Linda, it was not the only weight and structure of the bike that made it untenable to ride, but the weight of the early experience she’d had getting knocked off that bike that made it so undesirable to ride again.

The simple truth is that the Schwinn mystique had grown heavy with time. So we bought her a clean new Trek Navigator 2.0. Twice as light. Nice full seat. Better ergonomics. Teh Schwinn Varsity was permanently relegated to the garage attic.

Repeating patterns 

The red Trek 400 that launched two riders' cycling habits.

The red Trek 400 that launched two riders’ cycling habits.

The pattern of bicycle obsolescence repeated itself in the Trek 400 steel frame road bike my brother-in-law gave me to begin cycling. For two or three summers I rode that bike as hard as I could, trying like hell to build cycling muscles and keep up with the occasional group rides.

I clipped in with mountain bike shoes and SPD pedals, and could average up to 18 mph for 30 miles on the Trek that had similarly introduced my brother-in-law to cycling. He graduated from the Trek 400 to carbon fiber bikes and then purchased a sweet Waterford crit bike emblazoned with his team name and his own name in decals on the top tube. He raced CAT 3 and lived the sport fully until one day his fever ebbed and he stashed all his cycling stuff and jumped into the sport of skydiving.

Moving on

So we grow, and we graduate to new things and changed circumstances. The things we once prized become garage ornaments or mementos of the people we once were. But I could not bring myself to turn the Schwinn Varsity into a garden ornament. Giving it to Goodwill didn’t seem the right route to go either. I always wanted to find it a good home. Someone who really wanted and appreciated the Schwinn Varsity would be able to identify. That’s what I figured anyway.

At one point I put the Schwinn Varsity out on display during the lone Garage Sale I’ve ever conducted. A local bike expert who fixes up bikes and sells them on his front lawn came by to inspect the Schwinn. His careful eye noted a slight ding to the rear wheel, which was out of true. There was rust on the handlebars in dark brown pits. He didn’t buy the bike. “Too much work,” he told me.

Do It Yourself

The new owner of a very old bike. And happy for it.

The new owner of a very old bike. And happy for it.

So I took the initiative this year to fix up the Schwinn, using WD-40 to clean the rust off everywhere. The bike shone. Even the wheels. Put new tires on both wheels. The shifters and brakes were still fine. Then I waited for the right cosmic moment and the right person on whom to bestow the Schwinn.

It happened one night at a bar in nearby Geneva, the Little Owl. While waiting for friends on a slow Friday night I struck up a conversation with the bartender, a young woman working her way through college. She took an interest in the fact that I was meeting up with cycling friends for a beer and said, “I like to ride. I just need to get a bike. But I want something cool and old I can knock around on.”

I told her I had just the bike. Just for her. Her eyes brightened, and a couple weeks later I returned to the Little Owl to give her the bike.

My daughter had joined me for drinks and we chatted with the bartender for a while and then went to get the Schwinn out of the back end of the Subaru. The bike wheeled its way happily through the night air, and when the young woman saw the bike, she declared it “perfect” and happily posed for a picture on the sidewalk outside the bar.

A new home for the Schwinn Varsity

The Schwinn Varsity now had a new owner, and a new rider, after more than 40 years. It’s the heaviest damn bike you’d ever want to feel, yet its weight is also its charm. It is far better off in the hands of someone who will love and cherish it than it was hanging like an odd ornament in the garage.

That’s how it is with all kinds of objects and dreams. Sometimes we mothball them for too long. It takes a little lubrication and a bit of elbow grease to get them back in shape. Then we take them out for a ride, and/or share the joy with someone we hardly even know. And the purity of the moment is made from the absence of time.

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