Nov 08
Lord Of All That Was Epic…
Let me paint you a picture:
It’s late winter, 1993. A 17-year old kid is struggling to keep up. He has long lost sight of his riding partner and is 4 hours into the ride. His pedaling energy has long since left him, as he rounds a corner nearing the top of the arduous climb to Frosty’s Park. At long last, he catches a glimpse of his riding partner, relaxing on a fallen tree far ahead.
The 17-year old drags himself to a stop, pulls out his empty water bottle and fills it with snow. Having drained the bottle miles ago, melting snow will have to do for the remaining 2+ hours of riding that are left.
His riding partner, obviously still having ample energy, hops onto his Amp Research mountain bike and disappears into the forest ahead. Fearing the thought of taking a wrong turn, the 17-year old heaves himself back onto his Bridgestone MB-1 mountain bike, and follows the tire track left for him in the snow….
That 17-year old was me. That riding partner was this man……..
Meet Al. Al was the first pro mountain bike racer to ever ride a Manitou suspension fork; before Tomac, before Furtado, and long before Giove. Al even raced in the first ever UCI World Mountain Bike Championships in 1990. And he taught me how to ride….
Al showed me so many epic and obscure rides that I train on regularly today. Epic , as in, bonk-so-hard-you-pass-out epic. Obscure trails, as in, I-don’t-think-I’ll-ever-live-to-see-another-day obscure. I have more memorable rides with Al than any other human being. Like the 9 hour, 100+ mile offroad trek to Cripple Creek and back. Or the other 9-hour, nearly 10,000ft vertical feet summit of several Front Range vistas.
Lord Of All That Was Epic.
I also have a few things I don’t remember about Al, as a result of his “prohibition-era” martini recipe, but that’s neither here nor there…
Though we may age, we may never grow up………………
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