Nostalgia sweeps over me this morning as I cradle my coffee mug lounging in my chair and disappear down memory lane on my bike, with my older brother Tom, on his birthday.
Life hasn’t been very kind to Tom the past few years. That happens when time rolls on and on and on. Bodies wear out. Sadly, the days of Tom’s bike rolling on have passed.
But, oh, the memories.
I’ve mentioned before my first experience on a bike, sitting in the wire back baskets of Tom’s Columbia 3-speed as he terrorized me with off-road antics long before mountain biking was even a thought in anyone’s mind.
Years slipped by in the blink of an eye. Life happened. Good, bad and ugly.
Yet one thing never changes if you have an older brother: He never wavered as my hero.
In a rather bizarre coincidence, all four boys in my family found their way to cycling in their own manner.
My oldest brother Jim started riding when he moved out into Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine area and found himself surrounded by some of the best bike riding anywhere.
Then I got hooked out on the Pacific Coast Highway, hammering and writing about bicycle adventures and the hearty souls who race bikes.
My younger brother Joey got bitten by the racing bug, and quickly started racing as a Master, then on to ultras.
One year Jim, Joey and I rode from San Fransisco to Los Angeles.
Tom? Tom found himself on two wheels after getting his life back together in a comeback worthy of a movie.
By then we had skipped around chasing jobs and landed in Tennessee. Tom came down, always showing up for dinner with cheesecake for my daughters, along his bike and we shared some epic rides.
We pushed ourselves to the limit in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina, back in the days when I would ride one-handed to videotape us — a certain suicidal move for someone with my bike handling skills. I’ve got VHS crash videos with Tom looking back at me, laughing.
We got helplessly lost, back in the days before technology could assist you, and made an educated guess on the trail back to our cars. A wild, rocky, teeth-rattling hour-plus descent later we found the parking lot.
Once we found ourselves about two hours into a ride at Frozen Head State Park when Tom’s chain broke. By some freak occurrence I had a chain repair do-hickey on my multi-tool. I would have had no clue how to use it. Tom knew. He saved us an endless walk out.
We moved to Oregon and Tom went wild, telling me about this ride called the McKenzie River Trail — only described by many, as well as me after riding it, the best mountain bike ride ever.
Tom came out, and we hit the trail. I remember his wildly wicked maniacal laugh as we rolled around Clear Lake as if it were yesterday.
We hit trails in Oakridge and rode around Waldo Lake in one of our most nearly all-day epic rides.
Once I went back to Wisconsin, and we actually had a ride with all four bros and some nephews on the John Muir Trail in the Kettle Moraine. One nephew broke his arm. Unforgettable stuff.
Happy Birthday bro, you’re still riding with me whether you know it or not.
Time to ride
