the Crash: Part 2

At the time of the crash, I was a busy guy. If there were such a thing as a three-ended candle, I would be burning it at all three ends.

After a brutal first semester in college carrying 18 units, I was now in my second semester carrying a slightly more manageable 16. I was also working full-time as the night manager at Round Table Pizza. On top of that, I was trying to ride as much as possible to prepare for the upcoming mountain bike racing season.

We raced around ten times in 1985 and had a blast, but this was during and after my senior year of high school, and up to that point it was only for fun. I intended to race a little in 1986, but I wasn't that serious about it. I was focused on school first, making some money, and riding when I could. Steve and Doug, however, were going to take it up a notch.

They had both just started the process of having custom frames made by Ibis. I was envious, of course, but I was fairly happy with the Fisher Montare I had purchased late in 1985. It would work fine for my limited racing aspirations, and it was a major upgrade from the Ross I had raced the previous year.

Then I crashed my car.

The path I had been on, the one that seemed so very clear the previous day, had now muddied up considerably. Being a responsible adult and working hard towards some unseen life goal somewhere on the distant horizon now felt very different. Working too hard had nearly killed me. I wondered what the point was. My path suddenly had multiple forks jutting off in all directions.

Steve and Doug visited me the day after my accident and told me about the ordering process for their custom frames. They were excited in a way that nothing in my life had been giving me. Suddenly the fog cleared and my life came into focus: I was going to be a bike racer.

I called Ibis and talked to Scot Nicol, and he described the process and sent me a fit sheet. When it arrived I took all my measurements and filled out the short questionnaire. I made it clear this was a bike purely for racing and racing only. I even had them remove all the eyelets on the dropouts just to emphasize that this would be a sleek racing thoroughbred that would never have a rack or fenders bolted to it like some lowly pack mule. I went to a local autobody shop and picked out a Dupont Imron color—a metallic purple. I threw the fit sheet and a check for $300 in an envelope and mailed it off.

In a matter of weeks a pretty purple killing machine arrived, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

In the meantime, I was gathering the parts to build the most perfect racing machine possible given a relatively low budget. There were boutique parts out there that may have been better—WTB roller cams versus the Suntour version I was using, for example—but it was all very solid equipment at the time.

Was I a bit detail oriented at 18 years of age? Maybe.

Even at 18 years of age I was a fairly seasoned mechanic, having built many BMX bikes from the frame up. I already knew enough to buy my own hubs, spokes and rims to build my own wheels. I got them pretty close to the finished product, and my local bike shop fine tuned the spoke tension for ten bucks each.

It all added up to produce my favorite racing bike of all time and the one I had the most success on. Unfortunately, I would get less then two seasons out of the frame before it broke.

I went back to school around 10 days after my accident, and obviously I had fallen far behind. My heart was no longer in it, and within days I dropped out of college entirely. My candle suddenly had only two ends, and the racing end now burned with the fire of a thousand suns. I eagerly looked forward to the first race of season with a new focus. Being a responsible adult would have to wait. I was now officially a bike racer.

Later.