Shooting Peeps with a Slingshot and Other Mature Bachelor Party Shenanigans

It turns out I am getting older. One clear sign is the significant number of 40th birthday parties I have attended in the past few years. I can’t say exactly how many because my memory is starting to go, but there have been a lot, by cracky! And at each one, it is generally the same group of people, only a different person is wearing a silly hat or a sash. I don’t need numerous 40th birthday parties to point out the fact that I’m getting older. My aching bones do a perfectly good job of that. Nevertheless, my aching bones went to another 40th birthday party two weeks ago and there are many more on my schedule in the near future. When at last they taper off, the cycle of 50th birthday parties will begin and I’m sure my bones will still be aching. As for my own 40th birthday party coming up in less than two years, you’re all invited. Please come and have a great time. When it’s over, give me a shout. I’ll be curious to know how it went.

Weddings and bachelor parties have also become regular affairs, as many of my close friends, family members, and fellow coworkers who are also getting older are deciding it’s finally time to grow up. Recently, I attended a bachelor party in honor of Land Beaver, Bart’s older brother. Bart of course, as the four or five of you who read this column know, is hands down, without question, one of my most favorite fellow coworkers, and although Land Beaver has a real job and doesn’t work at the bike shop, he is nevertheless a very colorful patch stitched into the patchwork quilt that is the bike shop extended family. He is a regular on our shop bike rides and ski excursions and he helps out each year at our annual bike swap as well as joins us in our bike brigade during the annual 4th of July parade. If you’ve ever been to the bike swap, he is the guy wearing a sombrero, loading up all the free abandoned junk bikes in the back of his car. If you’ve watched the parade, he’s the guy wearing knee-high tube socks and a backpack zooming around on inline skates with a tow rope in his hands who I am cursing at for attaching his tow hook to the back of my Penny-Farthing.

Land Beaver’s bachelor party was nothing like your archetypal bachelor party in Las Vegas, Montreal, or at a rented condo a few towns over. There were no inappropriate shenanigans involving adult entertainment professionals. No tigers or chickens were harmed and no one lost any teeth. There were no cigars, no drinking games, and no keg stands. A mason jar full of fresh corn whiskey, generously donated to our cause by Jesus H. Renko’s fiancée, remained unopened. And even though by 11 pm the nine of us were all sitting quietly around a campfire struggling to stay awake, we all had a swell time, by cracky!

Seriously though, we did have a swell time. Perhaps the swellest time anyone has ever had at a bachelor party, or at least at a mature bachelor party, which is what I would call it, because we are all very mature gentlemen who are all married or engaged. We enjoyed a very mature bachelor party involving two mature days and two mature nights of tenting, mountain biking, archery, primitive weapon making, pine pitch torch burning, glass sculpting, and shooting Peeps at each other with sling shots. We enjoyed a lot of good mature camp food including sausages and beans (insert joke here) as well as polenta, peanut butter, potatoes, and of course, Peeps. Yes we enjoyed a few beers, but as a true indicator of how mature we all are, all but one of us listened to our wives’ recommendations and remembered to drink lots and lots of water. If this bachelor party sounds like a good time to you, feel free to take notes.

Aside from celebrating Land Beaver’s imminent nuptials, and bemoaning his fleeting bachelorhood, the main purpose of this trip, of course, was the mountain biking. We are all mountain bikers, and even though it was early spring, and most of us hadn’t sat on a bicycle since last fall, the idea of two days of epic mountain biking following two nights of mature bachelor party action sounded like a great idea to us. And even though by the end of the second day, the ache in my bones had spread to my back, neck, legs, and especially my bottom, I would do it all over again. I would just enjoy a few less beers and I would bring a much more significant and cushy sleeping pad to rest my aching body upon. Fortunately, the aches in my body have retreated back to their home in my bones, and I’m walking in a normal fashion again. I’m feeling ready as ever for the next mature event, which is another 40th birthday party. As for a gift for the lucky 40 year old, I’m thinking an unopened mason jar full of corn whiskey is a swell idea.

Stark Raving Mud

Like any good Mainer, my Mom has a lot of great expressions. “I’ve never seen luggage on a hearse,” and “It would take a hell of a man to replace no man,” are two classics. One of my favorites has always been “uglier than a mud fence,” which she uses when describing people and objects that are simply too ugly to look at. “That statue is uglier than a mud fence!” she’ll proclaim. I’ve seen a lot of fences in my 38 years, but I have never seen a mud fence, and I’m not sure she has either, but judging from that expression, a mud fence must be pretty darn ugly.

When my time comes to build a fence, I’ll be sure to look into other types—picket, wrought iron, wattle, palisade, split rail, or maybe even chain-link if money is, as Mom would say, “tighter than the skin on a hotdog”—but definitely not mud. Although I have never seen a mud fence, I have seen a lot of mud, especially this spring, which has rolled in on the coattails of one doozy of a winter. Let’s not forget, Old Man Winter has a mom too, and apparently she came to visit this year to show her reprehensible son how they did things back in the day.

When I was a muddy-kneed little kid, I used to make great mud pies. I would fill a pie pan with wet soupy mud and pat the surface with my little hand, maybe sprinkle some grass on top, and it was done. My lovely wife had a different method. She would find thicker mud and shape out a mud pie on the driveway, let it bake in the sun, and then feed it to her little brother.

Imagine the mud pie you could make with the muddy dirt roads that are out there this spring. “Home of the World’s Largest Mud Pie” could become a distinction for your town. I consider myself an exceptionally good driver, but having grown up surrounded by paved roads, I was never taught how to navigate a vehicle on the open sea, or down muddy dirt roads with huge swells and tall waves of mud crashing down, all of it working to swallow my Mazda like a leather boot. We recently went to a dinner party at Uncle Robby’s cabin, which is located on a very muddy dirt road at the bottom of a very long hill. For most of the drive, all was going well, and we were almost there, when suddenly the road came alive. My lovely wife did her best to instruct me, telling me to go that way and that way, but that no matter which way, not to stop! Fortunately, we were going downhill, so we had gravity on our side, and by the skin of our clenched teeth, we made it down. I was convinced, however, that when it was time to go, we’d never make it up.

The image of the Mazda sunken in a muddy ditch, and the prospect of being marooned at Uncle Robby’s cabin preoccupied me throughout the evening. You might say I was a stick in the mud. My lovely wife however, who was born on a muddy dirt road, wasn’t concerned in the least. When it was time to go, she turned the ignition key and put it in drive, pulled out of the driveway, and headed directly into the belly of the beast.

There was no turning back.

The journey up the road was tense, harrowing, and perilous. We were yelling and hooting, “Go! Come on! Yes! No! Yes! Oh no!” At one point she skirted the very edge of the road and it looked like we were doomed, but she held on and never stopped, never gave it too much gas, never kept the steering wheel turning in one direction, never stopped believing, and we made it out. The Mazda came out covered in mud pies, but it was nonetheless a triumphant, exhilarating moment.

Monster truck enthusiasts aside, I can’t think of too many people who particularly like mud. Most people complain about it, make efforts to avoid it, or try to get rid of it. That is, until they get on a mountain bike. Why anyone who generally avoids mud would suddenly aim for it, just because they’re riding a mountain bike, is beyond me. Mud is gritty paste that, like sand at the beach, gets everywhere. Short of tying an anchor to your bike and throwing it into the ocean, or placing it beneath the wheels of a monster truck, riding in mud is the single worst thing you can do to your bicycle. Mud is great for making mud pies or mud fences, but it wreaks havoc on every part of a bicycle: the braking pads and braking surfaces, suspension seals and suspension pivots, bearings and bearing races, chain and chainrings, and cables and cable housings. It drastically decreases the performance of your shifting and braking systems while exponentially enhancing the performance of your creaks, squeaks, and chirps. Riding in mud, of course, has also been shown to promote trail erosion, but that is another argument for another day.

I’m not saying that you can avoid mud entirely, but you can cut back by simply waiting until the trails are dry enough to ride, which around here, is usually not until May. During riding season, if it is still a little wet out there, choose the trails that are the least wet, and when you come upon a giant mud puddle or muddy section, stop and walk around. If what I am saying is as clear as mud, or you just plain can’t stay away from the stuff, at least clean your bike after your ride. If you don’t, so be it, but when your creaky, mud-caked bicycle isn’t working so great on your next ride, please don’t drag your bike shop’s name through the mud.

Gonzo and Me

When I was in fifth grade, after years of pleading and fussing, I finally got my first puppy. And it wasn’t because Pop finally gave in to my impassioned requests for a canine nor was it intended to comfort my grief after having found yet another one of our poor felines on the side of the road flattened, stiff, and stone cold dead. It was because my Mom, who was an ally in my fight for a dog, took advantage of a situation in which Pop himself created, and in which he could make no protests when we brought the puppy home.

Pop decided one day, despite Mom’s clear refusal to do so, to purchase a motorcycle. It was a foolish thing to do, but even more foolish was that instead of driving it to our neighbor’s house and parking it behind their tool shed, he drove it home and parked it directly in front of the garage, audaciously drawing attention to his manly triumph over repression. I can still hear the unmistakable sound of the motor in the distance getting louder and louder as it came closer and closer, but unlike all the prior motorbike noises that would pass by and then fade away, this one grew louder still until our windows vibrated. When the motor cut out, there was a quiet stillness in the air that hung like a quilt as my sister and I exchanged glances with Mom, who instead of storming outside and berating Pop, calmly told us to get ready to go for a drive. There were no words exchanged as we got in the car and drove away, leaving behind a bewildered and somewhat deflated Pop standing next to his shiny new Honda Shadow with its orange gas tank and 750cc, liquid cooled, 52 degree, V-twin engine that was still warm.

Forty-five minutes later, we arrived at a farmhouse at the end of a long dirt road with a sign out front that read “Free Puppies.” After playing with the litter for a while, we chose the one that was the most bashful and least rambunctious. The owner tried to convince us to take two, saying that our chosen one was most certainly a bit shy and would most certainly adjust better with a sibling. Mom replied that she didn’t want to push her luck and that if she were to take two dogs home, her husband would most certainly be gone. At least that is how we remember it, and that is how we came to name our new pup Gonzo.

Gonzo was my best friend, he was my hero, and he was my trusty companion who led the way while I delivered newspapers to the neighborhood in the cold dark early mornings before school. I grew up with him by my side, and even though he wasn’t in the car when I got my license, or with me in the auditorium when I graduated high school and college, his dog hair was. He loved us unconditionally and never let anyone down. Finally, when he reached nearly 100 dog years, he traded in his collar for a halo. I haven’t gotten a dog since, but will someday when I finally have a backyard to let it run around in. In the meantime, there are a lot of dogs in my life who I’ve come to know and love and I’d like to mention a few of them, as well as rate them using the following scale:

One Skunk: This is the rating given to a dog that smelled strongly of skunk when adopted. The former owner mentioned that it had recently been sprayed by a skunk and that the odor would eventually dissipate but it never did. The dog was never one to obey any commands and never really bonded with anyone and when it was finally brought to the vet, it was discovered that it was in fact a skunk.
Four Stars: Greatest dog ever.
Five Stars: Greatest dog ever plus one.

Gonzo: A Malamute Husky/Border Collie mix and my first and only dog to date. Rating: Five stars.

Gus: Mom’s current dog whom she rescued from a shelter. The jury is still out as to what the heck he is, but according to a few good sources, he’s a Border Collie/Whippet. He has a wide white stripe on his head and a stare that will melt your heart. He loves to sprawl out on your lap and as long as Mom doesn’t leave the house—he has severe separation anxiety—he is as mellow as a cup of mulled cider. Rating: Four stars.

Chui: My mom-in-law’s four year old Yellow Lab. His heart is huge, bigger even than his brain, and sure, he may eat one of your socks or a frozen “poopsicle” now and then, but he is super sweet and we all love him to pieces. Take him for a walk, scratch his behind, and give him a marrow bone and he’s a good as gold. Rating: Four stars.

Levi and Cady: Levi is Land Beaver’s “full blooded Puerto Rican scrounge hound” who is most likely a Border Collie/Golden Retriever mix. He enjoys chasing frogs, eating garbage, and canoeing. Cady is Scotty’s Border Collie/Mutt-next-door mix who likes barking, wallowing in the mud, and running away from you. Levi and Cady regularly join us on our mountain bike rides and backcountry ski adventures and even though they almost always disappear, after thirty minutes or so of yelling their names, they always come back. Levi rating: Four stars. Cady rating: Four stars.

Grizzly Adams: Chuck and Chinch Bug’s brand spanking new puppy. Supposedly, he is a purebred Chesapeake Bay Retriever, but I’m convinced he’s an Ewok/Buffalo mix. Rating: Four stars.

Well, it looks like we have a five-way tie for second place and a clear winner. Congratulations to Gonzo.

Superstars of Outdoor Retailer

I’m not a big fan of air travel, but for retail junkies like me who get the privilege of attending industry trade shows such as Interbike in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada and Outdoor Retailer in scrupulous Salt Lake City, Utah, it is a necessary evil. I understand that life isn’t always a day at the beach, so when I’m flying coach wedged between a loud passenger with a long story and a large passenger with a pointy elbow, I know that I just have to suck it up. To better deal with the inevitable unpleasantness, I head to the nearest airport bar before boarding and chase a Dramamine tablet with three beers. This works great for eliminating motion sickness, which I am prone to, as well as blacking out a good chunk of the ride, assuming I make it to my seat.

With a Dramamine tablet and three beers in my system, I was on a plane this past January with two of my favorite fellow coworkers, Bart and Phlip. We were flying to the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in glorious Salt Lake City, Utah, a place so glorious, the beer doesn’t need to be any stronger than 3.2% ABV and the urban sprawl and brown layer of smog hovering in the valley doesn’t need to get anyone down. We went out there for four days of very hard work and came back with a vast amount of knowledge and wisdom that is paramount to the ongoing prosperity of our business. Usually the boss is with us, but this year he couldn’t come along, which was a shame and we missed his company greatly. Fortunately however, his credit card did come along, so we were reminded of him every time we used it. It suffices to say and I’m sure it warms his heart to know that we were reminded of him quite often.

The first day of very hard work was the On Snow Demo at Solitude Mountain where overnight, fifteen inches of fresh Wasatch powder had fallen making it ideal for the very hard work of testing multiple pairs of brand new tele skis. Unfortunately we don’t sell a lot of brand new tele skis to our customers anymore, but it is still important for us to test them so that when we are selling a pair of ski socks to our customers, and we are asked how well they perform when skiing in fresh Wasatch powder on a brand new pair of tele skis, we’ll be able to provide a knowledgeable answer. Forming the necessary knowledge required to provide a knowledgeable answer to questions such as these doesn’t come easy, so we had no choice but to take many runs on many different pairs of skis, which, as you can imagine, is very hard work. So hard in fact, that by mid afternoon, my legs were so tired that I was unable to ski another run and by the following morning, my back was so stiff, I was unable to put on my socks without an epic struggle. That morning, my feet had never seemed so far away from my hands. Reaching them to slip on my socks felt like standing on my tiptoes with my arm fully extended, fishing for a spare key hidden on a tall shelf.

Bart and Phlip, who worked even harder at the demo than I did and skied until the lifts closed, mentioned that the disgraceful state of my body after the demo day may have had something to do with my current lack of fitness. I disagreed, declaring that is was completely due to my current lack of fitness. I hadn’t managed to squeeze in a lot of epic powder days before the trip and on top of that, I’m not 36 anymore. But, as stiff and sore as I was, there was no time for whining as there was a lot more hard work ahead at the show which continued for another three full days.

If you’ve never been to an outdoor industry trade show, imagine hundreds of vendors with elaborate booths displaying their amazing products while similar looking outdoorsy folks stream in and out. Imagine 80’s extreme skiing legend Glen Plake, with his signature Mohawk standing tall, schmoozing. Imagine the Hot Chilly’s long underwear model strutting back and forth on a short catwalk. Imagine a dude cruising around the show floor on small boards with two wheels, called Freeline skates, under each foot. Image me trying out Freeline skates and failing miserably, tweaking my sore back, and being told by the Freeline skate dude that the Hot Chilly’s long underwear model was a natural at it. Imagine a guy wearing an abominable snowman suit, a lousy cover band playing current pop hits, a PR rep with a microphone, a long line of dealers leading to a keg of beer, and a dealer frantically pulling pennies one at a time out of a fish tank full of ice water in hopes of winning a sleeping bag.

Imagine Bart, Phlip and I in this scene, with a clear mission of gathering vast amounts of knowledge and wisdom, walking from one end of the show floor to the other, making appointments and meeting appointments, discussing sales strategies with sales reps, product flaws with product engineers, marketing ideas with marketing directors, all the while searching for free beer. It is very hard work, and the boss would be happy to know that we didn’t slack off that much despite his absence. When it was all over, I was so exhausted from all the hard work at the show, and so sore and stiff from all the hard work at the demo, that when I got to the airport bar, I only needed to chase my Dramamine tablet with two beers. And as a gesture to the boss of my appreciation and understanding of the significant expense of sending all of us to the show, I bought the two beers with my own credit card.

Klister and Waxing Philosophical

I thought that Bertha was a fine name for the tall and curvaceous snowwoman that my lovely wife and I built in the middle of the field at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center on New Year’s Eve. It was she who suggested the name, and it just stuck. Bertha is my grandmother’s name, but only a few people know this to be true, so please keep it a secret. I’ve always called her Grandma. My mother and her siblings have always called her Mom, and everyone else has always called her Beth, which is her middle name. As far as her given name, Bertha, she hates it, and if she knew that I was sharing this sensitive information with the seven or eight people who read this column, she would be quite unhappy with me. But I personally feel that Bertha is a perfectly nice name, in that traditional, old fashioned kind of way, and it is a name that has gotten a bad rap over the years, if you ask me. Bertha the snowwoman didn’t seem to mind it, nor did Bernie or Bert, her snowman and snowchild respectively, who we built to keep her company.

Building a snow family in the middle of the field at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center on New Year’s Eve was not something we had planned on doing, but as is the case with a lot of families, it just sort of happened. We had instead planned on reliving our prior New Year’s Eve, when before the big bonfire at midnight, we went snowshoeing around the lake with shiny headlamps and a sparkling bottle of champagne. Last New Year’s Eve was a cold and snowy night, and the lake was as frozen as the look in a frozen fish’s eye, and our trek around the lake was as safe as it was wonderful. This year however, the weather was totally different. It was unseasonably warm, well above freezing anyway, and after a few slushy steps beyond the perimeter of the shoreline, we decided that trekking out on a lake that may or may not be completely frozen on a night that was as dark as a pocket wasn’t the best way to end the year.

The warm weather and the rain that fell overnight didn’t do great things for the conditions in the morning, but fortunately, thanks to enough of a base and a lot of good strong snow harvesting work performed by the Craftsbury trail crew, there was still enough snow on the trails to go for a nice ski. Thankfully, they didn’t harvest the snow from our snow family—they were still standing—although not entirely intact. Bertha had lost an eye and Bert’s mouth, made of a twig, had started to droop a bit. It only took a little bit of work to fix them up for their first full day together as a family. With our parenting work done, it was now time to head out for our second annual New Year’s Day tour.

Unlike last year, I thought I was prepared for waxing my skis, having brought all eight of the Swix kick waxes with me. I was determined to avoid last year’s frustrating situation, where I had all of the Swix kick waxes except for one, Violet Special, which of course turned out to be the wax of the day. I had no choice but to buy, at full retail, a container of Violet Special from the Craftsbury ski shop. For a retail junker who works at a ski shop, buying a container of ski wax at full price from another ski shop is a painful and shameful thing to have to do, and not something you would want to do twice. Thanks to rain and 40 degree weather, I was once again unprepared for the kind of snow that we were dealing with, which was soft and wet and evaporating in a dense low lying layer of fog. When the snow is like that, hard kick waxes are useless, even if you have all eight of them. The only stuff that works when the snow is in such a dreadful state is Klister, a nasty, messy substance that comes in a tube and needs to be spread on your skis like fine pâté on a baguette. I of course didn’t have any Klister, but because I am an expert ski tech with expert skills and a vast amount of expert knowledge, I was able to form the expert conclusion, based on my years and years of experience with waxing skis, that not having brought any Klister, all I had to do was simply purchase a tube of Klister from the Craftsbury ski shop. Despite reaching this conclusion, I refused to shamefully buy another product at full retail and decided to just head out with the kick wax that was still on my skis from last winter, whatever it was.

It was a foolish bull-headed decision and I of course had absolutely no kick at all and one thing you especially notice when your skis have absolutely no kick at all is an uphill climb. Skiing downhill feels the same, but trying to ski uphill with no kick at all is like trying to roller skate up a waterslide, only not as much fun. We did an 8K loop, and although it may be impossible according to the law of physics, I am convinced that the entire loop, from point A to point A, was uphill. This reminds me of a common metaphor for life, where at times it can seem like an uphill battle. To extend the metaphor, one easy way to gain traction in life is to not be too bull-headed. My Grandmother would agree.

Get to Know an Unknown Rock Star

I once mentioned to Bart, my hands-down favorite fellow coworker, that I am a rock star. I wasn’t kidding around; I was being serious. Being rooted in logic and reason, he of course went into immediate argument mode, disputing my claim with piles of tangible evidence that proves his contradiction to be sound. He was being literal and I understand that. No, as Bart pointed out, I am not a successful performer with millions of dollars nor am I a celebrated talent with legions of adoring fans. And no, I am not a heralded axe man with racks of Gibson Les Paul guitars piled in the back of my black and gold colored tour bus and I am certainly not a bestselling artist with racks of multiple Grammy awards piled in the trophy room of my rock star mansion.

Yes, I do work at a bike shop and yes I am lousy at playing guitar and even worse at playing bass. And it is true that, not counting my lovely wife, I have zero adoring fans. My rock star mansion may currently be a humble abode and my tour bus may be a blue and rust colored Subaru, but that doesn’t matter. I am still a rock star. I’m just not a real rock star.

Maybe Bart could wrap his head around the idea if I had said that I’m a different type of rock star. I am an unknown rock star, and I am not alone. There are two other unknown rock stars—Crash Davis and Bash Baker—who also work at the shop. And the three of us are in an unknown rock band.

Any retail junkie who has ever attended a sales seminar and lived to tell about it has probably sat through the “Be a Rock Star” motivational speech. The motivational speaker is referring to another type of a rock star, the sales floor chart topper if you like, who welcomes customers within 20 seconds or 20 feet from walking in the door, who tactfully suggests and successfully sells custom insoles with every footwear purchase, and who embraces boring tasks that everyone else avoids, like making a compelling display for inner tubes or Presta valve adapters. Every shop needs these types of rock stars, and we have them in our ranks, but this is not the kind of rock star that I claim to be. (Although if the boss asks, please tell him that I am that type, too).

Most of us who work at the shop have a lot in common and we do a lot of activities together outside of work. We ride bikes together and then we drink beers together. We ski mountains together and then we drink beers together. When we’re not playing in the great outdoors, we go to the Three Penny Taproom together and then we drink beers while complaining about being broke together. We are coworkers, but we are also good friends, which is one of the things that I appreciate most about my job.

And then there are a few of us, the unknown rock stars, who do something else, something a little different together, something that doesn’t involve exercise or high speeds or anything having to do with the products that we sell or the active, outdoor lifestyle we promote. Once a week, usually on Thursday nights, Crash and Bash and I set up in the basement of the bike shop and rock out together. Crash plays the drums, Bash sings and plays the guitar, and I play the bass, and we all drink beers. For a few hours, nothing else in the world matters. No, we don’t have a record deal. No, we don’t a gig lined up. No, we don’t have a name, but when we’re playing music in the basement of the bike shop and we turn up the volume of our amplifiers enough to drown out the boiler, and I manage to play a few correct notes in a row, there is a magical feeling that only rock stars like us get to experience. The feeling is so intense, that I would break into real rock star poses and throw my arm in the air and jump up and down if I wasn’t worried about knocking over Frank’s repair stand.

This magical feeling carries over to the next day and stays with us. This is important, because even though there is no other job we’d rather be doing, work at the shop can at times be challenging, like when a customer wants to return long underwear because after a day of snowshoeing, they weren’t breathable enough. It can be stressful, like when you realize that you have more high-end racing poles in stock than you can realistically sell in a year, or three years for that matter. And it can be monotonous, like when you check the time and it’s a half hour earlier than when you checked it a half hour ago. All these things can grind you down, but when you’re an unknown rock star, you can strike a power chord in your brain and the challenges, stress, and monotony of the daily grind become a bit easier to deal with.

To all the unknown rock stars out there, keep rocking and rolling. To all the sales floor chart toppers out there, keep selling and restocking. And to all the real rock stars out there, look out. As soon as I learn how to play better and we come up with a name, we’re coming after your Grammys.

Fighting Maturity Since 1973

I was driving home after work through the Bolton flats corridor recently on a golden, sun-soaked late fall evening, flipping through the radio stations, trying to find a decent song to unwind to after a day that had wound me up. At 5:15 in central Vermont, finding a listenable tune isn’t always easy, and this particular evening was no exception. After scanning through the frequencies for a few minutes, dodging car commercials and mindless DJ babble, I settled on a classic rock station that had just started a commercial-free block of golden, guitar-soaked classic rock.

American Girl by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers came on. Even though I’ve heard that song so many times I can sing it backwards in French while standing on my head, and I don’t even speak French, it was better than Free Bird. I turned up the volume and set the cruise control. With that familiar opening riff blasting through my factory speakers, I settled into the drive home and got ready to sing along. Halfway through the song, during Mike Campbell’s guitar solo, I was feeling better, and when looking around, I noticed that the trees, which a week earlier were still brightly colored, had all turned to goldenrod, burnt orange, and rust. The lush green summer coat was a faint memory; it was the final stand of this year’s leaves, before fading into a flat, dull hue, while clinging desperately to their branches before detaching and falling to the ground. Winter was about to move in.

Before I knew it, I was on my way back to work the next morning, drinking coffee and listening to VPR. During the Writer’s Almanac, I looked around and noticed a totally different scene in the valley from the prior evening. The sky was gray, the fog was low, and it was raining. The temperature was hovering in the mid-thirties. A storm had settled in overnight, and according to the Eye on the Sky weather report, snow had fallen in the higher elevations. Although I couldn’t see through the thick valley fog, the rust colored treetops were now covered with a white frosting.

Snow in the mountains means that without a doubt, some folks made their first turns of the season. I wasn’t one of them, but I was sure that a few of my favorite fellow coworkers were. As it turns out, I was right. Bart, Phlip, Land Beaver, and Trimtram all made it out for early morning “dawn patrol.” When I got to work, they were all exuberant when relaying the story. Sure it was raining at the bottom, but it was sick! Sure only the top of the mountain had snow, but it was sick! Sure there was only a feeble layer of wet slop covering loose rocks, fallen rust-colored leaves, and dirt, but it was sick! That is the kind of unbridled enthusiasm ski shops need. I’m glad we have someone to perpetuate it.

There was a time, not too long ago it seems, when I would have been up there with them. I would have waxed my rock skis the night before. I would have set my alarm clock for 4 a.m. I would have immediately jumped out of bed when it went off. But these days, alas, it is a different story. I may set my alarm with every intention of getting out of bed at four in the morning, but as soon as it goes off, I immediately kill it and go right back to sleep. It’s a shame, I know.

So what happened to my unbridled enthusiasm? When did I lose my desire to get up at four in the morning, trek out in the rain, hike a mountain only to ski the top half, then hike to the bottom and go to work? I wish I knew. Concerning getting up at four in the morning, here is how a typical conversation with Bart goes:

Bart: “It’s supposed to snow tonight. If there’s enough, we’re meeting at Mad River at 5 a.m. Wanna come?”

Me: “Yeah, maybe. How much is enough?”

Bart: “An inch or two. You know, enough to slide on. But they’re saying it may snow up to five inches! Sick!”

Me: “5 a.m. you say? Sounds great! There is a 100-percent chance I’ll be there. But there’s only a 50-percent chance of that, so if it’s 5:01 a.m. and I haven’t showed up, don’t wait for me.”

My unbridled lack of enthusiasm might have something to do with that Tom Petty song. Back when I had a lot more enthusiasm, if any classic rock song came on the radio, I immediately turned it off. This was back in the nineties and 2K, when I was listening to modern music and couldn’t bear to listen to any dinosaur rock. Nowadays however, I’m not only listening to classic rock again, I’m turning it up. And I’m listening to the Writer’s Almanac on VPR and turning that up too, although not because I enjoy Garrison Kealor’s voice at a loud volume, but because my hearing is starting to go. Yes, I’m getting older, that is a fact, but I also may finally be growing up. I’ve been fighting maturity since 1973 and have been winning, but now perhaps, I’m losing. But I’m not ready to throw my hands up just yet, so the next time my alarm goes off at four in the morning, I’m getting up. It’ll be sick!

Colonel Jacob Davis Would Be Proud

There are some businesses, such as apple orchards and football stadiums, that are busy in the fall. Our shop is not one of them. On a given day in mid November, there’s a good chance the ghost of Colonel Jacob Davis, the original settler of our little city, will walk through the front door before a living customer will.

As a way of drumming up some business during this slow time, I’ve suggested planting a few apple trees outside our front door and installing a JumboTron on the side of the building to broadcast NFL games, but apparently, because both would compromise the historic integrity of our location – the JumboTron, for example, would need to be bolted to the building, which would compromise its historic bricks and mortar, thus rendering them unhistorical – the downtown zoning committee won’t approve it.

And even though we carry all sorts of fantastic merchandise that is geared towards the cooler weather, shorter days, and bone-chilling rain, such as cozy merino wool sweaters, shiny headlamps, and waterproof/breathable rain gear, we simply don’t experience the droves of customers, as we do during bike or ski season, that flow in like football fans at a playoff game.

There’s an inevitable gap due to a seasonal paradox where it’s too late in the season to buy a bike – even if it is a 70-percent-off crazy closeout super special – and it’s too early in the season to buy a pair of skis or snowshoes. So, as employees, all we can do is wait it out, which means a lot of organizing, reorganizing, taking long coffee breaks at the coffee shop, taking short naps in the camping section, etc., until the business kicks back in when the snow starts to fly, or three weeks before Christmas, whichever comes first. Fortunately this fall, there have been a few highlights that have lifted our spirits during these slow days. One was a milestone involving a beautiful baby girl, and the other was a milestone involving an 11mm wrench.

The beautiful baby girl is Indy Rae, the 13-month-old daughter of Bart, one of my favorite fellow coworkers. Indy Rae is an amazing baby who looks a lot like her dad, only with more hair. If she has inherited his staggering athletic talent, she’ll be tele skiing by next winter and winning mountain bike races to the top of Mount Mansfield next summer. She’s probably a natural at her dad’s beloved game of Beer Pole, but hopefully she won’t discover that talent for another 20 years. As far as her personality, I’m hoping she gets more of that from her lovely mom. Bart quite often gets irritated with certain people, namely me, and he’ll say it’s because I deserve it. I’ll admit he’s not the only person who has ever felt that way – I am special after all – but I don’t need another person around who shares this sentiment.

Whether or not I irritate her was probably the last thing on her mind the other night as Indy reached a milestone in her life while at the shop, which, according to the boss, was a first since we opened for business 35 years ago. Right on the sales floor, in front of a small group of folks including her mom, the boss, and Phlip, one of my other favorite fellow coworkers, who filmed the moment, Indy took her very first steps. She did a great job, and even though she was a bit wobbly, she managed to avoid knocking over nearby displays of cozy merino wool sweaters and shiny headlamps. After five minutes, she was already walking straighter and with more control than many of us do after one too many games of Beer Pole. A few minutes later, she was heading for the door.

Another glorious shop moment, which was also a first, as far as I know at least, occurred recently with Snack, one of our younger generation whippersnappers, and one of my very favorite fellow employees. While working on one of the 70-percent-off crazy closeout super special bikes that we recently purchased from a shop that went under, he discovered another use for the 11mm wrench. If you’re one of the six or seven people who have read this column before and are reading it again, you may recall a column I wrote last year where I described the glorious day when I finally discovered, after 25 years of wrenching on bikes, the purpose of the 11mm wrench, which is for tightening the fender bolts on a Columbia 5-speed tandem. Strangely enough, I wasn’t even at the shop when this breakthrough occurred. Snack however, was at the shop when he made his discovery, and even though it took me as many years as Snack has been alive to figure out the purpose of the 11mm wrench, he discovered, so early into his wrenching career, that it is also used to tighten the seat rail clamping bolts on a 70-percent-off crazy closeout super sale bike.

There may not have been as much rejoicing upon this ground-breaking discovery as was the case when Indy Rae took her first steps, but the moment was equally monumental, in my opinion at least, in the history of the shop. I like to think that Colonel Jacob Davis, may he rest in peace, would be happy to know that monumental moments like these are still occurring here today, 223 years after he built his log cabin on the west side of the North Branch. He’d also be happy to know that there won’t be a JumboTron or any apple trees coming to our historic little street, and therefore the historic integrity of the little town that he named, as was fashionable at the time, after a city in France, remains intact.

Whiskey Shots and Mosquito Hawks

My brother-in-law Patrick and I hiked Worcester Mountain recently on a hot and muggy August afternoon and ended up seeing something spectacular.

Patrick is heading off to work in South Africa for two years, and this was our chance to spend some good brother time before he’s gone for a good long time. We chose Worcester Mountain because it’s a great hike that is close to home and is just grueling enough for a solid workout, but not too grueling. Patrick is still healing from a torn Achilles tendon and although he is recovering nicely he didn’t want to push it. A torn Achilles is a pretty serious injury that takes six to eight months to fully heal, and it had been just about eight months and he was just about fully healed, but not yet fully healed.

After climbing the steep section of sparkling mica-flecked rocks that have settled into place after what must have been a magnificent tumble thousands of years ago, we came upon the more exposed rock anchored deep into the mountain, with thick bands of quartz that burst like Oreo filling and stretch upward, leading the way to the ridgeline. It was a spectacular sight, but not the spectacular sight I was referring to earlier.

When we reached the summit we sat down to take in the view and eat our lunches. I had taken a small flask of whiskey just in case Patrick’s Achilles started to bother him and as it turns out, it was bothering him just enough to warrant a wee nip. My creaky knees, which sound like heavy wooden doors swinging on rusty hinges, were bothering me just enough, so I took a wee nip, too. It’s true that taking a shot of whiskey after a good hike isn’t very scientific, but it does help with the aches, and with the cool breezes at the top providing relief from the hot temperature and humidity, and a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains and valley floors soothing our eyes, we were feeling pretty good.

It didn’t take too long for us to notice a spectacle that neither of us had ever witnessed in our lifetimes, and I promise the whiskey had nothing to do with it. After all, we had each only taken a single sensible gulp and although it was quite hot it wasn’t so hot as to foster hallucinations. At least I don’t think it was. So assuming we were fully lucid, we saw, swarming around the mountain top in erratic flight paths, narrowly averting collisions with each other, hundreds and hundreds of dragonflies.

Twisting and turning, hovering, darting up, then down, then backwards, they didn’t appear to be doing anything other than simply enjoying flying. You could hear the very faint yet steady hum of the fluttering of their wings, like the sound of cards being shuffled, that would increase slightly when one would do a close fly-by of our heads.

After a few minutes a particularly large dragonfly landed on my leg and stared up at me with its two huge eyes like ornamental garden globes. I stared back and remained as still as I could while I reached for my camera. Just as I was about to aim the lens at the jumbo crayon-sized insect perched on my leg, its mouth started to open. I was pretty sure dragonflies don’t bite, but not being completely convinced that it wasn’t about to take a big chunk out of my leg, and it would have been a big chunk, I twitched and it flew away. I instead took a picture of the sky in hopes of capturing a few dragonflies in flight as evidence of what we had seen. It wasn’t a picture that will win awards, but you can make out at least 10 blurry black objects suspended in the air like UFOs in a grainy photograph from the sixties. It was a surreal experience. Patrick and I could have stayed up there all day, and the dragonflies wouldn’t have minded, but eventually we had to head down the mountain. The dragonflies stayed behind.

Aside from the spectacle of the dragonflies, I saw another remarkable sight in the sky this summer. It was on my mother-in-law Leigh’s birthday, and it was she who noticed it first. We were relaxing at a camp on Harvey Lake, just north of Mosquitoville, when suddenly she yelled “Look!” and pointed to the sky. High above were no fewer than forty hawks, slowly drawing large invisible circles in the blue sky, their wings making only slight adjustments and their beaks glinting in the sun. To some folks, hawks represent visionary power and guardianship, but to Leigh, they represent a connection to her best friend Karen, who died many years ago. We all took it as a sign that Karen, who loved hawks, wanted her to know that she was thinking of her on her birthday and wishing her well.

As far as dragonflies go, I asked Leigh what they might represent, and she handed me a book that explains these sorts of things. It said that dragonflies, sometimes known as mosquito hawks, are estimated to have been around for over 180 million years, and that if a dragonfly shows up in your life, you may need to gain a new perspective or make a change. Patrick is moving to South Africa for two years, which, if nothing else, is a huge change that will bring an abundance of new perspectives, and my life is always changing. As a result I gain new perspectives every day, so the omen of a dragonfly sighting may not apply to us, at least not right now. However, the book didn’t mention what it may mean if hundreds and hundreds of dragonflies show up in your life, so I will take it simply as a reminder that hiking is one of life’s great joys and that whiskey should always be enjoyed in moderation.

Beyond Exceptional

In my many years working at the shop, I got to know a lot of good people. It is one of the aspects of the job that I miss most, now that I spend my days in an office, behind a computer screen, under two hanging plants that I must say I’ve grown quite fond of. Aside from speaking to my plants—some say it helps them grow—I speak with a lot of customers, but the vast majority of these customers I will never meet in person or ever speak to again. In a 10-minute phone conversation I will have recommended the best pair of Nordic skis for skiing across a frozen lake in Minnesota, or explained which rack system works best for carrying a Stand Up Paddle Board on top of a 2007 Chevy Malibu, or suggested which pair of Darn Tough socks would be the most appropriate on a cold night in southern North Dakota, a hot day in northern South Carolina, or a perfect morning in eastern West Virginia. When I’ve answered all their questions and completed the transactions, I thank them for their business, assure them one more time that they won’t be paying sales tax, promise that their order will arrive in time for their imminent vacations, and say bye-bye. Assuming all goes well with their orders, I most likely will never hear from them again. The Darn Tough socks I recommended may have been the greatest socks they’ve ever worn, and I’ll never know. And so it goes.

Back when I was working on the sales floor at the shop, I would also help a lot of people choose the right gear every day, but a large percentage of the people streaming in are regular customers who have been in many times before and will be back many times again. Our shop appreciates and relies upon this base of regular customers immensely, and we try our hardest to keep it. These are folks who you know by name, who you build relationships with over the years as you watch their kids grow out of the bikes you helped them buy a few summers ago, and who you consider friends.

Regrettably, tragedy occasionally strikes, and you lose a few friends. Recently, on June 24th, we lost a very good customer and friend of ours, Dave Blumenthal, who succumbed to injuries he sustained when he struck an oncoming pickup truck on a remote mountain road while competing in the Tour Divide Mountain Bike Race, the longest and arguably most challenging mountain bike race on the planet.

The Tour Divide consists of a single stage—a 2,745-mile stage that stretches from Banff, Alberta, to the Mexican border in Antelope Wells, NM. There is no liability waiver, no entry fee, no support, and no prize money. There is, however, plenty of climbing. Crossing the Continental Divide 29 times, there is more than 200,000 feet of it. If 2,745 miles and 200,000 feet of climbing sounds like fun to you, here is how it goes:

At the start of the race, the organizers cheer you on as they start the race clock. Three weeks or so later, if you’ve managed to not drop out, you cheer yourself on and mark your time via the web when you cross the finish. Last year, out of 42 starters, only 16 made it to the end. The only concern the organizers have between the start and finish is that you follow the course. Any other concern is the responsibility of you, the rider. If your rear derailleur falls off, it’s up to you to fix it. If you need to sleep after the day’s ride—Dave’s goal was to average 120 miles—it’s up to you to provide your own waterproof and bug-proof shelter in which to lay your weary bones. If you’re hungry, it’s up to you to fix dinner. You just better have brought the right tools, bivy gear—a tent would be much too cumbersome and heavy—and plenty of nourishment in your packs. Staying in a motel is totally acceptable, but the race clock doesn’t stop when you check in. Regarding packs, Dave, also known as “Packman,” designed and hand built his own. Customizing and building better packs for various endeavors was just one of his numerous gifts. The Tour Divide is a race that requires the rider to be ultra fit and ultra prepared. Dave was both, and there was no question he had what it takes to finish strong.

I met Dave and his wife, Lexi, five years ago, when they put on a slide show chronicling their successful hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,650-mile trail that, like the Tour Divide route, stretches from Mexico to Canada. They completed the route in 158 days and came home with one amazing story to tell. I didn’t know Dave before the presentation, but afterward, my impression was that he was possibly the neatest guy I had ever met. Obviously, he was insanely adventurous and multifaceted—or perhaps, due to his inherent passion for the most difficult and grueling challenges, simply insane—but I was equally impressed with his sincere humility, friendliness, intelligence, creativity, and ingenuity. In a word, he was inspirational. These qualities are what anyone who knew him will use to describe him.

After the presentation, I would always look forward to seeing him and Lexi whenever they came into the shop. Once they had settled back into a more normal life in central Vermont, rather than planning for and heading out on a new “adventure a bit beyond reason,” as he called them, they instead brought their beautiful daughter, Linnaea, into the world.

Dave had written in his blog that he was most truly himself when he was in the mountains, and his final days were spent conquering one mountain after another. It is a small comfort knowing he left fulfilling another of his many dreams. I can’t express how sorry I am that he’s gone. To Dave’s family, I will miss him, our shop will miss him, and the community will miss him. We would have loved to see the latest slide show.

Welcome to Camp Here-We-Are

My step-father Pops’ lovely wife Sweet Liza enjoys good food, good wine, and traveling, among many other things. Pops and Liza got married seven years ago, and I was the best man at their wedding. When I was researching the history of their relationship while working on my best man’s speech, Liza told me that when she agreed to his hand in marriage, there were two things that he could forget about ever doing with her. One of those things is bowling. The other is camping. “No bowling and no camping, that is the deal,” she said. Pops agreed, and although he’s been to many amazing places with Liza, including Germany, China, Portugal, and Belize, he hasn’t been to a single bowling alley or campsite since he said “I do.” I don’t care so much about the bowling, but his renouncement of camping, however, considering Pops’ background, is a shame.

Many years ago, when I was a kid and Pops was married to my mother, we would go camping every summer for two weeks at Camp Seguin on the coast of Maine. Without fail, at least one of those weeks would involve fighting the boredom caused from sitting around inside our tent waiting for the rain to stop. My little sister Boo, who is seven years younger than I, provided little relief from the long, dull days waiting for the sun to come out. She had no interest in pulling the long legs off a Daddy Long Legs spider and teasing her would get old or get me in trouble. Mom would just lie there and read, propped up with a few pillows, happy as could be. She would occasionally try to explain how, with a book in your hand, you will never be bored. Be that as it may, her words did nothing to change the mood of her 10-year-old son.

So, being the great step-father that he was, between his long naps, Pops would be my playmate. He wouldn’t, however, participate in torturing insects. Instead, he would play Cribbage with me, and he would play with me for hours. After the fun of playing cribbage wore off, which for me was after about 20 minutes, he would continue to play Cribbage with me. On one particular rainy camping trip, we played no less than 21 games in a row. Eventually, after we couldn’t stand the thought of one more game, we left the campsite and made our way to the Rec Hall.

The Rec Hall at Camp Seguin was more of a wreck of a hall than a Rec Hall. When you opened the creaky rusty screen door, a deep, dank, musty smell would welcome you like a ghost butler vacationing from his duties at the haunted mansion. Inside the walls of the dilapidated green building were a few card tables, an old couch, a shelf with random board games with pieces missing, and a row of dusty books, and in the middle of the room was a ping pong table with wobbly legs and a faded, sagging surface. As decrepit as it was, it stood, indomitable, like an old work horse named Bourbon, with one more harvest left.

To get the thing in playable condition, we would use a few bingo chips to level it out and we’d cram a magazine under the clamps to tighten the net. After searching around for a while, we’d always manage to find at least one ping pong ball that wasn’t cracked. All ready to go, Pops and I would play ping pong for hours and hours, and we would actually have fun.

To think that he doesn’t camp any more is hard to imagine. I asked him recently if he ever misses going camping, and he said, “No, I don’t.” He then continued, “Besides, it would always rain whenever we went. But I did enjoy all those hours we spent together playing Cribbage and ping pong.”

We went camping a lot growing up because we weren’t fortunate enough to have a camp. We were never “going to camp,” we were always “going camping.” There is a big difference. I have friends who go to camp, and I’ve been invited many times to their camps. Every time I go, I never want to leave. Camps are great, and someday I hope to have a camp of my own. When I do, I’ll give it a name, something like Camp Here-We-Are, and I’ll furnish it with an exposed wood-framed couch with tweed cushions and a coffee table made from an old wagon wheel. There will be bunk beds in the bed rooms that will be too short to stretch out in and too narrow to roll over in, yet will foster the most amazing sleep.

In the kitchen, an iron skillet will hang on a nail next to an old-fashioned fireplace popcorn popper. On the wall in the living room I’ll tack up a brown paper bag with the outline of a large fish and an inscription that will read something like “Uncle Bruce’s Rainbow Trout, 5 lbs 2 oz, June 18, 2019.” In the front yard there will be a hammock hanging from two tall pine trees, a badminton net, and a bird house. Down by the lake, tied to the dock, will be a rowboat with rusty oar locks. Just offshore will be a float, floating. I’ll make sure there’s a cribbage board and a deck of cards, of course, and with any luck, there will be room for a ping pong table. Once everything is in place, I’ll invite Pops and Liza to stay for the weekend. After all, the deal was “no camping,” not “no going to camp.”

Wear a Helmet Folks! A PSA From RJB

My memory isn’t the greatest—I can’t remember what I wrote about in last month’s column or what I had for breakfast last Tuesday—but I can clearly remember certain events in my life, and one that is still quite vivid is the day I learned to ride a bike, way back in the golden summer of 1978. I was five years old, everyone had lots of hair, and “Fly Like an Eagle” was on the radio.

For my fifth birthday, which is in February, my Dad gave me a brand new blue and yellow Huffy with a number 5 stamped on a plastic card hanging from the handlebars. For three long months, while number 5 sat in the basement, I could only sit on it and imagine riding it. I finally started riding it for real in the spring, with training wheels, and when it came time to try riding without them, my Dad made a promise that he would take me out for an ice cream cone if I could complete two full-pedal revolutions. That was enough of an incentive for me, and on that day I took my first two complete pedal revolutions while rolling on two wheels. While attempting a third, I abruptly crashed to the ground and scraped my knee. With tear streak lines still visible on my dirty face, the black raspberry ice cream cone that I enjoyed later ended up serving two purposes: reward for my successful ride and pain relief for my sore knee.

Luckily, when I crashed, I didn’t land on my head, because like every kid on a bike back in the ’70s, I wasn’t wearing a helmet. And for the next six years, I rode my bike around the neighborhood, into town, into swimming pools, through the woods, over jumps, and down the steepest hills I could find going as fast as I could, and not once with a helmet on my head.

It wasn’t until the hair-sprayed summer of 1987, after we had moved from a house in the neighborhood to a house in the country, that I finally was ordered to wear one. Our new house was set back from a busy road that the locals used to make good time, so my parents insisted I wear a helmet when I biked on that road because of the high speeds of the cars and trucks flying by. Apparently, the possibility of being hit by a fast car or truck was the only good reason to protect your head back then. But at least it was a start in the right direction, and look how far we’ve come. Today, kids are wearing helmets even before they start riding bikes. Strapped into a bike trailer, surrounded by a metal roll cage, they’ve got helmets on. I have no problem with this, and although fitting a baby with a helmet is similar to bathing a cat, only not as fun, I am always willing to help parents out because I understand how important helmets are. They are truly the seatbelts of the bicycle and should be worn at all times.

I can say that at least once, a helmet saved my life. It was the cargo-pants-wearing spring of 2003, and I was 30. I was riding through town with some friends on our way to a little zone of mountain bike trails, when I went to do a routine wheelie drop off a four-foot retaining wall onto a parking lot. Before we left for the ride, I had noticed a small amount of shock oil accumulating just below the crown of my fork. I assumed it was due to a bad seal and so for that day’s ride at least, not too big of a deal. What I later learned was the leak was due to a crack in the stanchion tube, and so for that day’s ride, it was a really, really big deal.

When doing a wheelie drop, you ride a wheelie off a drop so that when you land, your rear wheel hits the ground first. If you attempt a wheelie drop, it is imperative that you get that front wheel up before you lift off, or you’ll plummet like a dive bomber. It is equally critical that the stanchion tubes of your fork aren’t cracked. All was going perfectly well for me until my front wheel touched down. In an instant, my fork snapped on both sides just below the crown. My front wheel rolled off in the direction that I should have gone, dragging my fork with it, leaving a trail of shock oil and coil springs. It happened so fast that when my face hit the pavement, my hands were still firmly gripping my handlebars. I had just done the equivalent of a sailor dive from a four foot high ledge onto a parking lot.

I was knocked unconscious, and when I came around a few seconds later, my helmet, still strapped to my head, had a narrowly-skirted-death-sized dent in it. My entire face was a swollen, bloody mess, with bits of pavement sticking out from my multiple wounds, and for the next few weeks, I looked like something that crawled out of a swamp in the middle of a bad horror movie. As far as trauma to my head, I’m pretty sure it was minimal, since my memory is just as bad now as it was then. After a few days, I felt good enough for an ice cream cone, and after a few months, my wounds were mostly healed. I now have only a really cool tear-shaped scar next to my left eye to show for it and a simple but significant word to the wise: Always wear your helmet!

Cat and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance

A close relation of mine, we’ll call her Mustard, recently announced that she is moving far away in search of new scenery and new opportunities. I am happy for her, but I’m going to miss her. She’s selling all of her furniture, but her really sweet couch is mine for free if I am simply willing to adopt Mr. Jackson, her crazy old cat. I am currently weighing my options. Do I really want the couch that bad? Do I really want a crazy old cat who finds the bathroom sink a suitable place to take a nap? It is a really sweet couch, so I’ll continue to mull it over. But today wasn’t about Mr. Jackson or the couch. Today was the most perfect spring day ever, so we just went for a bike ride.

Mustard rode her flat-bar performance hybrid that I gave her for her college graduation present. It is the perfect bike for cruising along the Burlington bike path and similar paved bikeways and roads. The 700c wheels and road tires roll smoothly and efficiently, while the flat handlebars provide the optimum handling required for weaving between walkers with ice cream cones, young ladies with jogging strollers, and old ladies with three dogs that sprawl out on their leashes in every direction, like octopus tentacles.

Mustard’s bike hadn’t been ridden since last fall, so I told her that she can count on the tires needing air. Air doesn’t like to sit around. It has better things to do. Just like watering a plant, if it has been a few weeks, or months, don’t even bother checking, just grab a pump, or a watering can, and get to work. And just like a plant, if it has been a few years, your tires will be dead. Sure enough, her tires were way down, so we pumped them back up to their recommended PSI, which was indicated on the sidewall of her tires. I then told her to ignore this step if she enjoys the feeling of dragging a log behind her, or if she likes getting flats.

I rode my steel 29er hardtail mountain bike. Not because it was the ideal bike for this particular ride, but because mountain bike season is still many weeks away, and I can’t wait that long. Aside from my tires being low, my rear derailleur cable was a bit slack. Just as tires lose air, cables lose tension, so I spun my barrel adjuster a bit until the shifting was precise. If you are willing to consider adopting a crazy old cat, I’ll explain how I did it.

Your shifter tells your derailleur what to do. The derailleur cable is the line of communication, so the first thing to check is whether the line is clean. You can easily do this by unbolting the cable from the derailleur itself. Grabbing the cable with your left hand, gently pull in the direction of the anchor bolt. With your right hand, click the shifter back and forth. The cable should move freely in both directions, with minimal friction. If it doesn’t, you need to figure out why. Perhaps, because you left your bike in a snow bank or in a damp basement all winter long, the cables have rusted.

This little exercise will also show you what your shifter is really doing: with each click, it is pulling or releasing a small amount of cable, which, as you can guess, is exactly the distance between the cogs of your gear cluster. With a standard rear derailleur, when your shifter pulls cable, the derailleur will move inward, towards the larger, or lower-geared cogs. Releasing cable from the shifter allows the spring of the derailleur to move it outward, towards the smaller, or higher geared cogs. Now is a good time to mention that I meant to say that Mr. Jackson is a nice adult cat, not a crazy old cat.

While the cable is still unattached, you can dial in your derailleur’s starting position. The starting position is when the top pulley of the derailleur is centered under the smallest, or highest geared, cog of your cluster. To center the pulley under the highest cog, simply turn the high limit screw, generally identified with an “H” in or out until the pulley’s teeth are directly in line with the cog’s teeth. You are now ready to bolt your derailleur cable down. Making sure you’ve released all your cable from your shifter, bolt the cable down while tensioning it with your free hand. Don’t pull too hard, just enough so that there is no slack in the line. At this point, when you click your shifter, the derailleur will move so that the top pulley is now perfectly centered under the next cog. If it is slightly off center, spin your barrel adjuster in the direction that you want the pulley to go. With this fine tuning complete, your bike should purr like a nice adult cat.

But it probably won’t. There are no fewer that three thousand factors that can affect precise shifting, even though you’ve followed the steps above. A bent derailleur hanger, a tired shifter, a worn out chain, a burr, and loosey-goosey derailleur pivots are just a few, and those require more advanced skills to remedy. A more common and easily remedied factor is proper lube and shifting techniques. A light, barely detectable coat of bicycle chain lube on clean chain is what you want. A dark, dripping coat of motor oil on a dirty chain, which will only attract more dirt to your chain, like a nice old cat to your lap, isn’t. As far as proper shifting, it takes a lot of practice, but there is one fundamental rule you can start following today, unless you want to break your chain or bend teeth on your cogs or chainrings: do not shift when your chain is under a lot of tension.

Now about that crazy old—I mean, nice adult cat…

Rubbing Shoulders, Olympic Style

My Olympic fever has gone down, but I still have a touch of the commercial flu. After three weeks of being glued to the TV, I don’t think I’ll ever turn one of those blasted things on again, or at least not until baseball season starts. Aside from watching an Olympic-sized amount of commercials, I watched plenty of exciting Olympic coverage, and after all those hours of staring at the TV screen, I learned a few things. I learned that curling is even more exciting to watch when the officials need to bust out the competition dial measurer to determine which stone is closer to the button. I learned that aside from me, entire cultures can be offended by hideous-looking uniforms worn by ice dancers. And most inspiring of all, thanks to the U.S. bobsled team’s grand achievement, I learned that you can win an Olympic gold medal even if you have a beer gut.

I have never been in the Olympics, and I will never be in the Olympics, even though I have a beer gut. But I am fortunate enough to know a few Olympians, including Seth Westcott, who four years ago won the first-ever gold medal in Olympic snowboard cross, and who this year defended his title. Way back in college, when I was a regular Sugarloafer, I would occasionally see Scott flying by in the park on his way to the halfpipe. I met him years later at a mutual friend’s wedding, the summer after he won his first gold medal. He was introduced simply as Seth, and if I hadn’t recognized him, I may have never known that I had just met a gold-medal winning Olympian. Upon realizing who he was, I asked why he chose to wear a tie around his neck instead of his gold medal. I don’t remember exactly what he said, because at that point he was talking to someone else.

I met another gold-medal winning Olympian years earlier, while I was a snowboard bum in Breckenridge, CO. I was riding with my friend Corey, his wife, and her friend Donna. While riding the chairlift after a few runs, Corey casually mentioned that Donna was in the Olympics. I looked back at Donna, and suddenly realized that Corey’s wife’s friend Donna the snowboarder was in fact Olympic mogul skier Donna Weinbrecht, who won the first ever gold in women’s mogul skiing. At the top of the lift, I reintroduced myself and congratulated her and asked what she was doing on a snowboard. I don’t remember exactly what she said, because at that point, she was already riding away.

Other than casually meeting a few Olympians, I’ve also worked with one. That would be Larry Damon, who is a four-time Olympic cross-country skier and biathlete, and who for many years since retiring has wrenched on bikes at our shop in the summer. Each year he shows up with his leather-bound tool case, pops it open, and gets right to work. Even though his tool case is filled with assorted well-worn wrenches and screwdrivers, I’ve only ever seen him use a hammer, with which he can fix just about any bike, as long as it is made of steel. One particular time, he straightened a derailleur hanger that was bent and twisted like an Olympic diver in mid air. On one of my first days working with him, before I understood him a bit better, I said, “So Larry, you were in the Olympics, huh? Cool!” He responded only with a grunt, but after warming up to me a bit, he not only told me a few Olympic stories, he also told me about his love of jazz and playing the trumpet, and other stories that only a trumpet-playing, four-time Olympian could tell. I mentioned that I play the saxophone, but he may not have heard me, because at that point, he was back to hammering on another bike.

Another Olympian who I’ve gotten to know quite well, and another one of the greatest guys you could ever meet, is former Olympic cross-country mountain biker Pavel Cherkasov. The first time I rode with him, nervous and intimidated, I yelled out, “If there are any Olympic mountain bikers behind me who would like to pass, feel free.” But instead of blowing by and leaving me choking on his dust, Pavel stayed back and rode at my pace, and hooted and cheered the whole ride. His enthusiasm was contagious, and it made me appreciate every pedal stroke. We had such a good time riding with him, we stayed on the trails longer than we should have, and ended up riding out in near pitch blackness, which is very dangerous. At the end of the ride, instead of saying, “Are you guys trying to kill me?” he only asked where we were riding next week.

One other Olympic athlete that I’ve come to know is Liz Stephen, who competed in her first Olympics this year in multiple cross-country skiing events. Many years ago, during one of our ski swaps, her Mom brought in a few pairs of ski boots Liz had outgrown, and I asked, “If you hold one of these boots up to your ear, can you hear Liz giggle?” I should have put one of those boots in my mouth, because I fear my poorly worded comment was misconstrued. To clarify, I was only referring to her contagious enthusiasm which glows like a sun beam and is an Olympic quality that I wish I possessed, instead of a beer gut.

Retail Junkie Superstar: Working Hard, Like Dogs in Fact, in Utah

It takes a lot of hard work to make it in retail, but the rewards of offering quality products and great service make all that hard work worth it. The Boss, three of my favorite fellow coworkers, and I just got back from a lot of hard work out in Salt Lake City, UT. We were out there to attend the Outdoor Retailer trade show, which is a gathering of 40,000 or so vendors, retailers, media personnel, sponsored athletes, and long-underwear models. We go out there for a number of reasons: to check out next year’s winter gear, to complain to our reps about things that make our customers complain, and to get the inside scoop on spectacular rock-bottom-priced closeout items that are sure to set our sales on fire. We also happen to drink a lot of free beer, which many vendors offer as gratitude for the business we did last year and in appreciation of the business we’ll do next year. We, of course, accept the free beer because it is customary and the last thing we want is to appear rude.

I would say that the free beer goodwill stops there, but there may very well be an ulterior motive. Our reps always seem to wait until we’ve had a couple free beers before they pull out the list of show specials, which is a secret list of spectacular rock-bottom-priced closeout items that are going quick and need to be purchased immediately because they’ll be gone tomorrow if they aren’t gone by the end of the day. I’ve been to a lot of shows, and I’m starting to notice that the large dent we put in that list is oddly congruent to the large dent we put in the keg. We see many different vendors at the show, and many different lists, and well, we work very hard.

The first day at OR is the All Mountain Demo, where we work especially hard, like dogs in fact, tele skiing on next year’s tele skis. From first chair to last, with only a lunch break in between, we put our noses to the grindstone and search for hidden powder stashes to be used as testing grounds to highlight a particular ski’s characteristics, so that when asked by discerning customers, we will respond with as much knowledge and experience as possible. It took half of the day and a lot of hard work, but eventually we found many hidden stashes on a part of the mountain that had been closed earlier in the day, so that all the fresh snow that had been piling up overnight could be bombed for avalanche control. As soon as they opened the gate once the area was deemed safe, we made our way along a traverse until we discovered a steep, wide open swath of the mountain covered in a fresh blanket of waist deep Wasatch powder, which was perfect for the very hard work of testing the powder-surfing qualities of many different tele skis.

Committed as we were to the job at hand, we kept going back to that swath, over and over again, always finding more fresh lines, until we got to know the skis as though they were our own, so that when we mark them down to 50 percent off at the end of next season, and finally sell a pair or two, we will be able to describe from firsthand experience what those particular skis are capable of.

By the end of the demo, we were exhausted from such a hard day’s work. I worked so hard I could barely walk, and for three days after my body felt like it had been run over by a truck loaded with multiple pallets of spectacular rock-bottom-priced closeout items heading to Vermont. I hadn’t had enough days on the hill prior to the trip to get my legs in shape for such a hard day’s work, and all the free 3.2-percent beer in the world couldn’t numb all of the pain. But a sore body is a small price to pay for the experience and knowledge I gained which I will apply on the sales floor in the name of great service.

On our first day back to work after the show, for some reason, our fellow coworkers weren’t too interested in hearing about all of our hard work. When the spectacular rock-bottom-priced closeout items arrived at the shop on multiple pallets a few days later, amassing to nothing more than a spectacular assortment of random poles, bindings, and roller skis, they shook their heads and asked whose spectacular idea it was to buy this stuff. As we started digging through the boxes, we were suddenly reminded of two golden rules: free beer and buying don’t go together, and if an item is still too expensive at 50 percent off, you know you’re in trouble. Next year we’ll have to work like dogs just to remember that.

The Life of an Alpine Skier Turned Snowboarding Tele Skier who Cross-Country Skis

My first time Alpine skiing was at Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire in 1983. I was ten years old and my family had just moved to Littleton, NH, from Portland, ME. My parents were nice enough to sign me up for the skiing program at my new school, which aside from providing me with a lift ticket and lunch, provided me with really lousy rental equipment.

Back then, Alpine skis were straight, ski pants were tight, and helmets were non-existent. Tele skiers were unusual folks with beards, leather boots, and wool pants. Snowboarding was a few years away from being recognized as a national sport, neon was a few years away from ruling the ski fashion world, and the Old Man of the Mountain, which for 30,000 years or so had watched over the land from high on Cannon’s eastern slope, was 20 years away from collapsing. On my first day Alpine skiing at Cannon, after one lesson, I was instantly hooked, and so began my lifelong love of cruising downhill on snow-covered mountains, with or without great stone faces.

All I ever wanted to do after that first lesson was go to Cannon, yet my parents, who didn’t appreciate lift ticket prices and crowded lift lines, would often take me cross-country skiing instead. This never settled well with me after I learned to Alpine ski, and I still remember how miserable I was whenever we’d go to the touring center instead of the mountain. On one especially miserable occasion, they dragged me to trails that were directly across from Cannon, in plain sight of the hundreds of fortunate black dots making S-turns down those glorious groomers and bump runs. Kicking and gliding along, begrudgingly following my parents, and many years before growing up, all I wanted was to be one of those black dots.

Despite that particular day on the Nordic ski trails, I spent plenty of other days over the next 15 years as one of those black dots, making glorious S-turns with Alpine skis on my feet. At age 25, I had reached a plateau in my ability, and after holding out for many years, I decided to give snowboarding a try. I was reluctant at first, mainly because I was proud to still be a skier, while all of my friends had become riders, but also because I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of going back to the bunny slope. I was a regular at Sugarloaf, and considered myself a solid expert, and couldn’t imagine being humbled by trails like the Toll Road. But I swallowed my skier’s pride, took a snowboard lesson, and spent the rest of the day on the Toll Road getting repeatedly body slammed from repeatedly catching my downhill edge while trying to link turns.

Perseverance paid off, and by the end of the day, I had not only linked a few turns, I had once again become one of those black dots making S-turns, only this time with a snowboard attached to my feet. I had also severely bruised my rear end, banged my head countless times, and broken my wrist. Nonetheless, on my first day snowboarding at Sugarloaf, I was instantly hooked. For many years after that, I thought I’d never ski again.

That changed after I moved to Vermont. After a few winters of riding my board on some of Vermont’s finest terrain, I decided it was time to try tele skiing. We had started carrying tele gear at the shop, and I felt I needed to be a tele skier if I was going to try to sell the stuff to tele skiers. I took a lesson at Mad River Glen from my good friend Scottpelier, who is a fine tele skier and a great instructor, and with his guidance, I carved my first tele turn, and it felt amazing, and on my first day at MRG, I was instantly hooked. I’d love to say that learning how to tele ski helped me sell a lot of tele skis, but it didn’t. It turns out that when you’re selling tele skis at 50 percent off, tele skiers don’t care in the least if you are a tele skier, or for that matter, an alpine skier, a cross-country skier, a snowboarder, or a curling enthusiast.

These days, a quarter of a century after taking my first run at Cannon, I am still one of those black dots. I might have tele skis on my feet, but more often it’s a snowboard. For whatever reason, after all these years, I prefer cruising down snow-covered mountains sideways. As far as Alpine skiing, I’ll do that once every few years just to make sure I’ve still got it. As far as cross-country skiing, I recently went with my lovely wife, and after one day at Craftsbury, kicking and gliding along those glorious, rolling trails, many years after growing up, I was instantly hooked.

That's The Way The Frozen Death Cookie Crumbles

This winter marks my 10th winter living in Vermont. I’m originally from Maine, and I love the place dearly, but I don’t have any plans on moving back. Occasionally, I get a little homesick, and start dreaming of sitting on the porch of a harbor bar in Bar Harbor, washing down a clam cake with a pint of Geary’s, watching a lobster boat methodically make its way from one buoy to another, stopping briefly at each one before moving on, like a garbage truck on its Thursday morning route. But because my family and a lot of my best friends are still in Maine, I visit often enough to remind myself that clam cakes are actually really gross and Bar Harbor is overpriced and overrun with ice cream parlors and tacky t-shirt shops and tourists wearing tacky t-shirts and eating ice cream cones. After a few days my homesick feeling recedes with the tide, and I look forward to heading back home, to Vermont. My affection for Geary’s however, never wavers.

I moved to Vermont in November of 2000. That particular November was cold and rainy, the kind of November that Guns n’ Roses songs are made out of. Each day was darker and more dreary than the last, and bleaker and more raw, and then it started to snow, and by mid-January, we had the kind of snow I had only seen in the black and white photographs of my Grandmammy’s picture albums or in the vivid color photographs in the picture album of my wildest dreams. And the snow didn’t stop until May, six months after it had started and two months after I broke my collar bone in half while trying to do a routine frontside 180 flatspin on a groomer at Sugarbush North. I went from riding on buried treetops to riding in a rescue toboggan in just one run, and then I drove home with my arm in a sling, and the greatest winter ever, at least for me, was over. For those of you learning to snowboard, here is one thing to never forget: if you are going way too fast on a groomer and decide to bust out a frontside 180 flatspin, do not let your toe edge contact the snow mid spin.

This past November was like a warm, golden fall day plucked out of a travel brochure and stretched out for an entire month. It was nothing at all like November of 2000 or any of the following Novembers, and most likely, this coming winter, my 10th in Vermont, will be nothing like the nine that have preceded it. I just hope it shares one thing in common: lots and lots of snow. As far as an injury is concerned, I’ll pass.

I’m no stranger to injuries, and many of my last nine winters in Vermont have been defined by them. I will always remember the greatest winter ever as the winter that I broke my collar bone in half and more importantly the winter that I realized my bones were no longer made of indestructible rubber. I was reminded of this fact a few winters later, at Mt. Bachelor in Oregon, when I lost control and slammed into a large frozen death cookie. It was the first run of my first day, and according to my self diagnosis, I had cracked a few ribs, and the six to eight weeks of pain I endured supported that diagnosis. For those of you heading to Oregon to go riding, here is one thing to never forget: in the springtime in Oregon, the snow turns to concrete at night and stays that way until the sun warms it up, so keep away from any snow that is in the shade.

A few winters after that, while on my first run of my first day in Brighton, UT, I was once again reminded that my bones are made of aging bone. I was cruising along on the runout when I darted off the trail and aimed for a beautiful little pillow of fresh snow just to the side of the trail, thinking it was perhaps a harmless buried rock or maybe a friendly log. Instead it was the top of an unmarked twelve foot drop-off and at the bottom was a landing as flat as a clam cake, or a cookie sheet. When my tele skis touched down, all of my momentum came to a bone crunching halt, and something had to give, and that was my L1 vertebrae. Of course, a few hours later, after a handful of Ibuprofen and a few beers, I was back on the hill, and it wasn’t until two weeks later, when I was back home in Vermont, when the pain in my back just wasn’t going away, that I got an x-ray. For those of you who hurt your backs while skiing in Utah or Oregon or Vermont or wherever, don’t keep skiing. You very well may have compressed L1 vertebrae, and you need to rest.

So, what kind of winter will my 10th winter in Vermont be? I’ll have to wait and see, but having learned some hard lessons, I do know that I will be keeping my downhill edge off the snow, I will avoid shady sections of trail, and I will use my acquired sense of premonition to avoid dangerous, unmarked hazards. For those of you like me, here is one thing to never forget: as you get older, eat all the cookies you want, just drink plenty of milk.

Eggnog Need Eggs, Waxless Skis Need Wax

It's that time of year again, when, according to Andy Williams or anyone who has received royalties from a beloved Christmas tune, it is the most wonderful. Many others share that view as well, but when Christmas day is just one day off, wedged between two of the
most hectic work days of the year, and I still have to drive to Maine and back, hearing that wretched song on the radio makes me want to throw a wretched fruitcake at it.

But I don't want to be the Grinch to your Andy Williams, so I'm not going to complain about how working in retail has sucked the joy out of my holiday experience like a black hole decorated with blinking Christmas lights and life-sized plastic Santas. Instead, I am going to share some basic concepts regarding cross-country ski waxing, as a sort of gift to you, the reader.

The first concept to understand is that there are two main types of wax—kick wax and glide wax—and they do completely opposite things. Kick wax, or grip wax, sticks to snow and is used exclusively for classic style cross-country skiing. Glide wax prevents snow from sticking and is used for alpine skiing, tele skiing, skate skiing, snowboarding, and yes, classic style cross-country skiing. The fact that classic cross-country skiing uses glide wax can boggle minds, especially when it comes to "waxless" skis. It may sound crazy, but waxless skis need wax, and no, I haven't been drinking too much of my Cousin Lenny's special eggnog. Because waxless skis use “fish scales” to grip the snow, you don't need to worry about kick wax, hence the misleading term "waxless." But don't you want to have optimum glide over the snow after you've kicked? Don't you want to prevent snow from sticking to the base of the ski? Sure you do, and that is why glide wax is so important, so from now on, think of waxless skis as "less wax" skis.

The second concept to embrace is camber. Unlike alpine skis, tele skis, or a snowboard, all of which are single cambered, classic cross-country skis are double cambered. If you take your alpine skis and squeeze them together, you will notice that will little effort, the skis will flex and the bases will contact each other from tip to tail. Now try it with your cross-country skis. The skis will flex, but a small gap will remain in the center of the skis. That small gap is the kick zone, or the wax pocket, where the kick wax goes, or where the fish scales are found. The sections that are touching are the glide zones, where the glide wax goes. If you squeeze harder, the gap will close and the bases will come together. It is this double-camber design that allows cross-country skis to grip when you need them to grip, and glide when you need them to glide, and why your weight is so important when choosing the correct ski length.

A ski sized properly for your weight should work like this: When you are standing on both feet, evenly weighted, the kick zones shouldn't be touching the snow. When you transfer weight to one foot during the kick phase, you'll overcome the initial camber and the kick zone will contact the snow and provide that essential grip. If you're not heavy enough to overcome that secondary camber, the kick zone won’t contact the snow and you won't get any grip. If you're too heavy for a ski, you'll glide on your kick zones and wear off your kick wax. If you have waxless skis, you will scare the wildlife into thinking that a large zipper is coming to get them.

Concerning waxless skis, which have glide zones just like waxable skis, you should apply a coat of liquid glide wax from tip to tail, right over the scales, before every outing. Just like airing up your tires before a bike ride, a quick coat of wax will allow you to move forward with less effort. The glide wax on the fish scales won't affect the grip, but will prevent snow from sticking.

When it comes to waxable skis, keep the glide wax on the glide zones only. Liquid works well, but because waxable skis generally have sintered bases, which are porous, a hot wax, which penetrates into the base and lasts a lot longer, is best. For the kick zones, you need to select the appropriate kick wax based on the temperature and condition of the snow. This can be tricky, so the best thing to do is err on the side of cold. Start by corking in a colder, harder wax. If it doesn't work, you can apply a warmer, softer wax right on top. Eventually you'll get it right and you’ll have great kick, great glide, and a great sense of accomplishment.

Speaking of accomplishment, I hope I have accomplished what I set out to do, which was to give the gift of basic waxing concepts. If I have, I just might have to listen to that Andy Williams classic with a new ear and give fruitcake another chance.

A Bicycle Named Sofia

Experienced bicycle mechanics, like heart surgeons and great cities such as Rome, for example, are not built in a day. It takes many, many years. Yes, there are schools in places like Portland and Colorado Springs, where in a few short weeks you can earn an official certificate stating that you are a “certified” bicycle mechanic, but you will be far from an “experienced” bicycle mechanic. To earn the “experienced” distinction, you need to travel down a long, bumpy road, full of rusty twists and corroded turns, recumbent-sized potholes, and frugal customers who need new drivetrains. Once you’ve reached the end of this road, you’ll have a skill that few people possess, and you’ll have a trade that you can use to make a living, sort of. Best of all, every once in a while, you’ll get to use your skills in the real world to make someone very happy. But first, there are some things you must do.

You need to cross-thread the bottom bracket shell of a custom steel frame. You need to grind your knuckles deep into a greasy chainring. You need to squirt Tri-Flo into your eye. You need to spend 20 minutes scratching your head, trying to figure out why the rear shifting suddenly isn't working any more, only to discover that you clamped the rear derailleur cable against the chainstay while installing the kickstand. A few years later you need to do it again.
You need to stab the end of your finger with a frayed brake cable. You need to wonder why, after cutting it twice, the steer tube is still too short. You need to have a tire, whose bead isn't properly seated on the rim, explode like an artillery shell in your face. You need to promise a customer that you'll remove that frozen seat post by the end of the day. You need to be able to fix a brand new Huffy for less than the customer paid for it. You need to spend an hour on your hands and knees searching the floor for the world's smallest screw. Only then, an experienced bike mechanic will you be. Or so I thought.

A few weeks ago, while hanging out with two of my best college friends, Carl and Puff Debby, and Debby’s pug Harley, I was able to put my experienced bicycle mechanic skills to good use. P. Debby showed me her old Columbia five-speed tandem that for years had lingered in a dark corner of her basement like a corduroy bean bag chair. She casually mentioned that she sure wished she knew a bike mechanic who could perhaps get it running. Bike mechanics love this kind of thing, and I am no exception, and I declared that today, this sweet Columbia five-speed tandem, which would otherwise make me cringe if it came into the shop, would roll.
We hauled it out of the basement through the bulkhead and into the light of a beautiful fall day. Puff Debby got a bucket of hot soapy water ready, while I dug through her husband’s toolbox, hoping for nothing more than an adjustable wrench. To my surprise, along with a proper set of screwdrivers, I found a complete set of metric box-end wrenches. Not only was this bike going to be clean, I thought, it was going to be dialed.

After I had adjusted the brakes and the shifting, tightened the bottom bracket and headset, and straightened the handlebars, I discovered something that in all my years as a bike mechanic had been a mystery to me: the purpose of the 11mm wrench. I’ve worked on thousands of bikes over the course of almost 20 years, and all that time, the shiny, unblemished 11mm wrench never left the hook on the tool wall. At last, on this day, I finally figured out that it is for tightening the fender bolts on a Columbia five-speed tandem.

When it was all shined up and tuned up, the moment we had been waiting for arrived. Carl named the bike Sofia, Harley grunted in approval, and we took a few photographs to capture the moment. Finally, Deb and I took it for a spin down the street, carved a perfect 180-degree turn around the cul-de-sac, and returned safely to her driveway. It ran as smooth as frogs’ hair, and the recently tightened rear fender didn’t rattle one bit.

As a bike mechanic, it is moments like these that give me a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. I rescued an old bike, I put a smile on a good friend’s face, and I finally figured out what the 11mm wrench is for. And to think that before then, I called myself an experienced bicycle mechanic.