Father of 2, husband of 1 and a lifelong cyclist…
I started getting into cycling during the summer between 8th grade and my freshman year of high school, both my parents commuted to work on bikes and my brother had recently started road riding. I initially got a mountain bike and started racing that, then after watching American Flyers I got a road bike and started racing that about a year later. I have been riding ever sense!
I needed money to buy bike parts and pay entry fees, so I lied about my age and got a job in the local mall selling shoes at Kinney Shoes (Great American Shoe Store) when I was 14 years old. I then saved up enough money to buy a Porsche 924 when I was 15 so that I could bomb to races in style. The 924 died (what do you expect for 2500.00) and I bought my second car, a Toyota MR2 (that I still own) before I turned 16. I can’t tell you how many races I went to in the MR2, but it was a lot. Life was good and I got a promotion to part time assistant manager along with a few awards for top salesman of the league (cash bonus for gear and entries).
Between work, training and school something had to give and it was school… I was going to be a full time bike racer, so what did I need school for right??? Took the high school proficiency exam (with my brother) and started at the local jr college at 17 (El Camino). This fit into my training much better! I jumped ship and got a job at a different shoe store with better pay, and more flexibility. Knocked out a few good trips my last year as a junior, hit Casper Classic, Mammoth Stage Race and Road Nationals in Texas. Had a bronze medal wrapped up in the TTT until our 3rd guy’s wheel fell apart with about 2 miles to go, I am still pissed off about it! Got to see George Hincapie win the crit and Fred Rodriguez win the RR. Good times I must say.
Great things happened after this as the shoe store went out of business and i got to collect unemployment for the first time, this is every aspiring cyclist dream! Of course I got a job delivering food in my trusty MR2 for cash so I could still collect the checks; I now had more money and only worked a few nights a week. This is the perfect setup for cyclist still dreaming of making it big, free food at night and checks flowing in the mail every 2 weeks- everything you need to rock out 400 mile weeks. I was still hitting the jr college part time, would always line it up so that I had a block of night classes from 4-10pm on Tuesday and Thursday. This is the best schedule if you are trying to train like a pro, life was good…
So now at the age of 20 I was feeling it was time to take the next step, both in my budding racing career and in my life. I met my wife, Melanie during the summer of 94 and knew on the first date she was going to be marriage material. At about the same time I got invited to participate in the Tour De Yugoslavia, it was game on! The wife ended up working out great and we now have 2 kids, 1 dog a business and house with an ocean view. The international stage race was a HUGE ass beating that would require a couple of pages in itself to explain. Great experience though and an eye opener to what being a real cyclist is all about.
Once I had a girlfriend i had no real reason to keep going to school, as that was my main motivation for education. Picked up a job at a bike shop (Helens) and started making a bit more money to pay the rent on an apartment with my GF/future wife. Got on my first real team, Mongoose, with real bike racers- great way to learn how to race bikes. Knocked out Bisbee and Cascades to keep it real as well as won a few 1-2 races, great memories and nice low stress time in life.
At 25 i married my wife and started to think about my future, funny how that happens all of a sudden. I went on a rampage of reading 1200 page computer programing books and quickly picked up job at a dot com in the late 90’s when that was all the rage. It helped that my buddy (Howard Doerfling) that managed my first team as a junior was now an HR rep at the company. Let me tell you, it is no surprise the dot com bubble went bust. I spent 2 years not working! Just sat at a desk and tried to look busy, I kept my obsession with my new trade/craft going and must have looked like the model employee as I made it through 3 rounds of layoffs. Well the last round I was out on 3 months of paternity leave as my first son Ryder was borne, so that bought me an extra bit of time. As good as the job sounded (not actually doing any work, free catered lunch, free beer, flex hours, valet parking, high speed internet) i was going nuts. Sitting in a cube trying to look busy was not for me, I HAD to head out on my own. By the 4th round of layoffs I put my hand up and said “get me the hell out of here”! After 2 years of a desk job I had my Rubik’s Cube solve time down to a personal best of 1:26 and my weight up to an all time high of 180lb’s and actually had some jiggle in my butt! Being the life long bike racer I had no control around free food at lunch, just felt the need to gorge myself like a bear getting ready to hibernate for the winter. So in a few weeks period I started my own business, bought a house (closed escrow right before the job cut thank god) and started watching the baby full time as I sent the wife back to work at KHS Bicycles. I can look back now and say this was one of the best periods of my life, I started getting a bit of the cycling bug back and was sneaking out for a quick 40 minute hammer session a few afternoons a week as well as growing a business and hanging out with my boy. Good times, though a bit stressful at the time!
Jump forward a few years and I have an incredible daughter (Summer), a 10 year old business and a Masters Cycling Career! Along the way we started a cycling club to promote our business (and get some new up to date kits to wear), the club is now 100+ members strong and has a life of its own.
Life just happens, you can’t plan to much or that would take some of the fun out of it. Work hard and treat others with respect and it all works out.
Oh yea the MR2 is still in the drive way, Ryder is looking forward to driving it in a few years.
KP out.