Life-Saving Device

Racing the A-class cyclocross races in Annapolis, MD. Circa 1987

I had worked full-time at Princeton Sports Baltimore as a bicycle mechanic for over a year before seeing my first mountainbike. Dang, the adult-sized off-road bicycle mesmerized me in ways I never knew possible. Within the fantasy mountainbike movie playing in my head…I saw adventure, I envisioned strength, I fantasized pride, I imagined perhaps some hope, and dreamed even, of a way out.

Two years earlier at the ripe old age of 16 I dropped out of school, and to claim I was a full-blown hot mess at the time is an overpowering understatement of fact. I was mad at the world, scared of my own shadow, emotionally adrift, and resoundingly…addicted to drugs. My mother got locked up over a decade before, my father was perpetually on the go, and it seemed I was held captive on a dead-end life path, hah…held captive that is by my own hand. Mother Patricia was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, institutionalized for years, then lived out her remaining days as a ravenous homeless Baltimore bag lady.

Maybe in our youth we are all somewhat scared and adrift, IDK. For me, the most-days-absence of my father amidst the loss of my mother, plus the fear associated with the monster-mother’s attacks against me and my three sisters left my heart bleeding across the kitchen floor.

Part-time wanting to do something, go somewhere, be somebody, so to not die by drugs…my big-ass cool thing in life goal was to race off-road motorcycles. Imagining an escape was somewhat maybe plausible, I ridiculously allowed myself to dream and hope. But after I purchased a dirtbike motorcycle with my own damn money, I was disallowed to competitively participate in the sport, even though it was all I desired in the whole wide world. I thought the dynamic racing scene offered me a path up and out of my pathetic shitty existence, if I could just get there.  

Developing sound mechanical skills while fixing my dirtbike motorcycle out in my dad BigBird’s driveway, in addition to working summers for the father of my pal David Ankers in his machine shop years before, on my 17th birthday I was hired at Princeton as a bicycle technician. There were no motorcycle service shops close to my father’s house, and I no way did not want to ride the bus for over an hour to get to work. So before I had a driver’s license, I accepted the job offer and commuted to Princeton Sports on my bicycle.

The pot, speed, acid, barbiturate pain pills, cocaine, meth, and heroin all afforded me a comforting escape from the void and fears in my head and heart, well, that is…that is until I started shoving a needle in my arm.

With the creep of drugs flooding me incessantly for six years by that time, well but no actually wait, mostly it was the lies I told myself getting the better of me…I then quit Princeton, got derailed in life for a while, then went back to work in the bike business just down the road at Mount Washington Bike Shop in northern Baltimore City. When at Mount Washington, although the drug needle ruled me my majority of days, I saved up enough money to buy a cheap mountainbike…a brand-new and shiny black Ross 21-speed with gold anodized rims, costing me about $200. Already spending years riding off-road motorcycles, well as off-road BMX bikes, well…I guess my in-dirt skills were perhaps slightly above average.  

My first mountainbike ride took me through the local familiar woods at Lake Roland, just over the city line into Baltimore County…oh my gosh it was amazing, something thrilling beyond words. Maybe, just maybe, I had found my new big-ass cool thing.

But I perhaps skipped forward too fast…aghast and alas the drug needle still dominated me.

I tried, I really tried to dream of a better life, and I grew to know for certain that the only way I could get where I wanted to go was on my mountainbike. Avoiding more disapproval from BigBird, I attended my first mountainbike race with dear friends Mark Weinreich and Mike Welsh. Mark chauffeured us north from Baltimore for hours to reach the northern Pennsylvania race venue. Mike and Mark were extremely supportive of me, cheering wildly on the sidelines, and maybe they hoped I could use this bike racing thing to start moving away from the needle. But then, oh for Pete’s sake…the bike would also get the best of me. My bike racing career was almost over before it began.

Less than two minutes of atmospheric zone high heartrate after the starter’s flag waved, I dropped out. Seems like I was a master of dropping out. Pissed beyond mention, Mike and Mark stormed back to the car and begrudgingly drove the three hours home, them not saying a single word to me along the way.

After punishing myself severely with cocaine and heroin needle self-blame and shame for months, I tried to build some slight hope. Slowly I collected the notion…hum, maybe…maybe try racing once more, or maybe it just wasn’t worth it. Every sport I ever played thus-then in my life I totally sucked at. Two years of little league baseball and I never hit the ball, never once. My earlier attempts at kid-sized BMX bike racing was a flop, I never once qualified for the main event, aka I sucked. I committed to try mountainbike racing again and shockingly, I won my sport-class race, then immediately upgraded to the highest regional rank of east coast racer at the time, expert. Although still consuming massive amounts of drugs for another five years, I was trying to quit drugs in favor of the mountainbike…I was trying.  

After 13 years I finally traded up…I quit drugs once and for all, and the following year I earned my professional mountainbike racing license. Racing led me to successful leadership roles at Trek Bicycles, thus affording me a livelihood I doubt to have gained anywhere else. For a punk ass bitch lowlife piece of shit dropout drug addict, although not at all easy…I guess I can claim that I got somewhere, I did something, I became someone.

This year 2023 marks my 40-year anniversary riding mountainbikes and you might agree that quite literally, the mountainbike saved my life. Funny to honor perhaps such a silly mechanical device but for me at the time, it’s all I had to get me away and keep me away from the forces trying to kill me, aka myself.

My humbled respect for such a device runs deeper than my ability to explain except to say…I am overwhelmingly grateful for such a magical machine in my life, and of course all the associated glorious experiences along the way. Thank you all for being part of my journey, I love you so much.

~ Bird out.