Veterans Day

 

I was in traveling in Texas last week visiting Trek dealers.  Trek loves Texas.  We sell a lot of bikes in the Lone Star State and we have a great group of retailers there.

Last Thursday on Veterans Day I found myself at Richardson Bike Mart in Dallas to see my good friends Jim and Rhonda Hoyt.  They have one of the largest and most successful bike shops in the world and it doesn’t happen by accident.  They take great care of their customers and employees.  The rest takes care of itself.

About ten years ago, I was visiting Jim and he invited me to his house for a beer.  Always works for me.  Anyways, I am looking around the house and I see a purple heart framed on the wall.  “Jimmy, who’s Purple Heart is on the wall?” I asked. “Hey Butter Bear (a name he uses for many people), that would be mine.  18 months in Nam.”  That was the end of the conversation; he didn’t want to talk Vitetnam. He wanted to talk bikes.   

This week was also the 30th anniversary of Richardson Bike Mart and they had a table filled with memorabilia from over the years.  Since Thursday was Veterans Day, some of Jim’s items from Vietnam were on the table.  I took my trusty phone camera out and took a few pictures.  These are photos of a kid who spent 18 months on the front lines, earned two silver crosses and two purple hearts.   In one battle on Hamburger Hill his unit lost 78 men. 38 were wounded and only 12 walked away.   He would never tell you, but I will.

In Washington at the Korean Veterans Memorial there is one simple inscription.  It reads “Freedom is not free.”  

Thank you Veterans.

 

 

 

Pay It Forward

When I was a kid, my Dad was thirty pounds overweight and smoked a pipe.  After Frank Shorter won the 1972 Olympic Marathon, the running boom in America started and my Dad was at the start.  He used to run around Beaver Lake and everyone thought he was a nut.  His first race was the Mayfair Half Marathon and I went along and rode my bike.  He had me bring food in case he got hungry.....a bag full of M & M’s.  He graduated from half-marathons and started to run the NYC marathon.  I will always remember waiting by the phone for the call to see how he did and what his time was.  He always wanted to beat four hours and I think it took him 3 times to break the mark.

He always liked to go running with me and I can't say as I ever really enjoyed it.  Ping pong, YES.  Running, No Thanks.  A few years later I started to get into running and so I told my Dad one year for his Christmas gift that I would run the Boston Marathon with him.  He loved it.  We ended up running Boston three times and it is one of the great memories that I have of him.  It is because my Dad became a fitness nut that a lot of doors opened for me.  Because he started running, I started running; because he ran a Marathon, I ran a Marathon.  Because I ran a Marathon, I had the stupidity to do an Ironman. Because I did an Ironman, I figured I could ride Etape Du Tour which is a race held in France every year over the toughest stage in the Tour.  I have done five in a row and it is my favorite athletic event.

And so for Christmas this year, I asked my son Richie for my gift to run a Marathon with me.  "Sure", he said. And we went from there.  NYC was picked; in part to honor my Dad.  The marathon was this past Sunday and we..............finished!!!  Even ahead of Jarod, the Subway guy, and the Chilean miner.  Most importantly, we had a great time.  It got a little ugly out there and we had to dig deep to get the deal done, but Richie rallied for the last four miles and it was an AWESOME event.  My Father would have been very proud.  I was.

Jb.

Thank You Jim Oberstar!

On Tuesday cyclists lost a good friend in Congress when Congressman Jim Oberstar went down in defeat in Minnesota’s eighth congressional District.  

Back in the mid-90’s Congressman Oberstar’s wife had breast cancer and for a family activity, they started to bike around the D.C. Area.  The Congressman quickly came to the conclusion that there were not very many places to ride his bike.  Unfortunately, Jo Oberstar lost her battle with cancer.  The Congressman started to ride his bike more often to deal with his loss.  The more he rode his bike, the more he came to the conclusion that America needed to become a more bicycle-friendly country.  

In 1997, I received a phone call from Congressman Oberstar who wanted to talk to me about the industry’s effort, or lack thereof, in working with Congress to get more bicycle facilities built.  The Congressman’s pitch made sense to me and so I told him that we would get involved.    Trek stepped up and was a major contributor to lobbying for the inclusion of bicycle-related programs in the new transportation bill.  Congressman Oberstar crafted the legislation to include bicycles in the federal transportation bill for the first time.   After we got the bill passed, we were a founding member of Bikes Belong, an industry group with the goal of putting more people on bikes more often.  

In 1997, the federal government spent $20 million a year in bicycle facilities.  Last year that number was $1.2 billion.  In 1997, the bicycle industry was completely disorganized.  Today the bicycle industry has an effective voice in Washington.  Today the bicycle movement is alive and well in America.  Cities across the nation are investing in bicycle infrastructure because they realize that the bicycle is a simple solution to the complex problems of the environment, congestion, and the obesity crisis.  None of this would have happened without the leadership of Congressman Oberstar.