It's not about the bike - the Bicycle Touring Club of North Jersey

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2 Time To Pass The Torch... But First Another Story BTCNJ 2012 OFFICERS PRESIDENT • Ethan Brook ethanbrook@gmail.com VICE-PRESIDENT • Ralph Monti ralphm@mediaconsults.com SECRETARY • Diane McNally dmmcnally@optonline.net RIDES CAPTAIN • Wade Wegner w.a.wegner@gmail.com MEMBERSHIP • Terry Griffin info@btcnj.com LEGISLATIVE ACTION • Ted Semegran ted_semegran@hotmail.com MASTERLINK • Larry Schwartz btcnj.masterlink@gmail.com WEBMASTER • Thomas Hobbick webmaster@btcnj.com TOURS • Barbara Augenblick beejayaug@gmail.com VOLUNTEER DEVELOPMENT Steve Greenberg steve551@optonline.net SPECIAL EVENTS • Linda Krauss krauski@gmail.com and Diana Shikiar dianashikiar@gmail.com PUBLICITY • Joel Ringer ringer@teammarketingsvc.com TREASURER • Franklin Wimer FBWimerjr@gmail.com PAST PRESIDENT • Ken Stahl ksbike453@gmail.com President’s Message Actually the story comes later. Stick around. First things first. This will be my last article as President of BTCNJ. Ralph Monti, our current Vice President will take over as President on January 1, Ethan Brook 2013 in a bloodless coup. I think he has forgiven me for twisting his arm to the point where the redness is still slightly visible. If you want to congratulate him, left hand only. Thank you Ralph for all your help this past year. You made my life much easier. And thank you for supplying your birth certificate in a timely manner. I wish you good luck as President of this wonderful organization. I’ll spend most of my spare time building my library. I also want to thank Charles Cino who served as Vice President for the first two years that I was President. Both Charles and Ralph were responsible for almost all of the programs that were presented at the monthly meetings. Trust me. That was no easy task. As for the rest of you, our past, current, and incoming Board members, volunteers, ride leaders, the 1,500 or so members of BTCNJ, and any category that I missed, thank you for your help, your participation and the terrific camaraderie that is a hallmark of this organization. It has always amazed me that this club, this bicycle club, has been around since 1978. How did we do it? Most businesses don’t even last that long. Should I bring up marriages? Never mind. So what’s the secret? I’m not sure, but I do know this. Thanks to all of you it’s working. And now for the story that you’ve been waiting for. Wait. Just a few more items. Some important dates to put on your calendar. Our opening event for 2013 is our annual Year In Review on Thursday, January 10th at the Ridgewood Library at 7:30 P.M. For those of you who have been there before you already know that it has always been a sellout. For new and old members, it’s a great opportunity to see a year’s worth of events, combining video, photographs, and some great music. Get there early, or else it’s SRO. On Saturday January 19th at 7:00 P.M. we will be celebrating our 35th Anniversary Party at the Indian Trails Country Club. If you haven’t registered, what are you waiting for? This is one super event with great food, a professional disc jockey and a fantastic dance instructor who keeps the party rolling. All under a pretty spiffy roof. AND.... your friends and fellow cyclists will be there in normal clothing, something you may have never seen before. And Finally. A group of cyclists were out riding in an unfamiliar rural area on a Sunday afternoon. There was beautiful scenery, bright sunshine, a perfect day for a ride and a chance to really smell the roses. As they passed a church that was located on a curve in the road they sped by a group of people holding up a sign that read: “The end is near! Turn around before it is too late!!” They held up the sign as each passing cyclist whizzed by. Some of the riders just laughed it off. Some of the others were not so polite. Fingers flew in the air. “Leave us alone you nuts!” yelled the fist cyclist as he sped by. From around the curve the sign holders heard screeching tires and then a big splash. One of the sign holders turned to the others and said: “Do you think we should put up a sign that just says ‘Bridge Out’ instead?” True story? Don’t really know. But, it’s a reminder to keep your eyes and ears open when you’re on a bike ride. Safety first, and second and third. There’s still riding left to do for 2012. Be careful out there. Enjoy the holiday season. See you on the road. Sign Up for the 35th Anniversary Party Saturday January 19, 2013! Ethan Brook- President BTCNJ’s most festive gala, the 35th Annual Anniversary Party, is scheduled for Saturday, January 19, 2013 at the Indian Trail Club in Franklin Lakes, NJ (across from the Market Basket). Festivities start at 7:00 P.M. Once again music will be provided by BTCNJ member DJ Chris Andres (andresentertainment.com). Sasha, (gifttodancestudios.com) our ever-popular dance instructor, will also be on hand to get your off-bike mojo working. You can make your reservations by clicking on the PayPal icon in the ad that appears in this issue. PayPal takes all major credit cards, so you don’t need a PayPal account to register online. The $40 per person registration includes music, hors d’oeuvres, buffet dinner and soft drinks. A cash bar is available and bottles of wine can be purchased for $25. So trade in your spandex for your party best, and let’s have some fun. See you there! - Ralph Monti On the Cover: “Bicycle Island” is a photo of flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy taken by Eric Heupel (http://www.flickr.com/photos/eclectic-echoes/) Dec 2012, Volume 35, Number 12. Circulation:1,500 via electronic download. The MasterLink is published 12 times per year as the official publication of the Bicycle Touring Club of North Jersey, P.O. Box 839, Mahwah, NJ 07430. Our website is www.btcnj. com. ©2012 by the Bicycle Touring Club of North Jersey, all rights reserved.
3 BEGINNEr’s CORNER It’s time to wrap up. I’ve gone through almost everything important I can think of that I know and a beginner doesn’t (a short list), and I’m tapped out. It will still be possible, I hope, for newcomers to access the archives and read through as many of the installments as they want, if that’s their idea of a good time. In any event, the series is being published as a paperback in the spring, so get it now, while it’s still not copyrighted. (I’m kidding about that.) By coincidence, my leadership of the infamous Every Wednesday Ride also concludes this year. The ride may continue next year, but under new management. I felt that seven years was enough. The movie based on the ride, called “EFW - Men in Tights”, will be out in the fall, with Tommy Lee Jones as me, and Joe Pesci as Rick Vara. Bring the kids. So how do we wrap this all up? When I first started doing this column two years ago, I asked the question, “Who is the beginner?” I think I have a better answer now, but it will take a minute to explain. I used to be a beginner myself. When I first started this thing, about twenty years ago, it was all about the bike, no matter what Armstrong said. The idea was to buy a bike, get some equipment, and just get faster and faster. That would make me fit and strong and, I hoped, kind of cool. I bought a basic hybrid bike and got a book on cycling from the library. What could go wrong? As it turned out, everything. I quickly became rich in mistakes. I found that I really did need all those cycling clothes I had been knocking, and that my poor hybrid was not really an all-terrain bike, as I’d thought. Lesson learned. Then I got a mountain bike with toe clip pedals (believe it or not) and started trying to do everything it said in Mountain Bike magazine. I crashed into everything. My wife, Andrea forbade me to come home injured even one more time. One day I crashed so hard that I almost ended up lying in the woods alone until the bears got me. I quit mountain biking. Lesson learned. Then I got a road bike. Having no idea what I was doing, I bought a bike that didn’t fit, along with clipless mountain bike pedals and racing shoes (believe it or not). I put up with it for two years, before I bought better equipment that worked well and more or less fit me correctly. Lesson learned. Thing is, for all the lessons learned, it was still about the bike. If I just kept on buying better stuff and building up miles, I would eventually succeed at this. I would be a good cyclist and that would make me happy. No problem. Then, when my wife was dying, I discovered something unexpected. The only (sane and sober) thing that took my mind off of what was going on was the bike. The process of riding took just enough concentration to take my mind off of what was happening, and focused me on what I was doing. It was a world in itself, just me, the bike and the road, where I could merge myself into the process and find peace. It didn’t save Andrea, but it saved my sanity. The next few years I It’s Not About The Bike -- Really started riding a lot. Nights could be bad, but days could be filled with the transcendental experience of humming along, focused, flying a fast light aircraft four feet above the ground. I formed an idea. Bicycling, I thought, was about freedom and excellence. The rest was nonsense. In short, I had come to love bicycling. Now it was not about the bike, it was about riding, about the almost spiritual feeling of power and accomplishment. It was more than just riding a bike, but it was still something that involved only myself. I had one more step to go. In 2006, Rick and I started the Wednesday ride and like many steady rides, it quickly became a clique, which grew into a gang. The coffee stops at Dunkin’ Donuts got longer and longer, and soon we had exhausted everything we knew about bicycles and began to learn things about each other. As it turned out, my fellow riders were more interesting than I was. Imagine that. They had become not just other bicycles, but friends. I found myself wanting to ride with these people not because it was a B ride on a day when I wanted to ride and the weather was good, but because I liked them. And when I landed on my head and went near-psychotic, I had friends. Once again I was in the black hole, and once again it was bicycling that helped pull me out, but this time it wasn’t riding by itself, it was my cycling friends standing around the edge of the hole and throwing me a rope. And that is when I reached maturity as a rider. It’s not about the bike, or the love of the bike, it’s about the people on the other bikes. We ride our bikes because these thirty pound mechanical couplers connect us to other people, and we need those other people. Yes, it’s freedom, and excellence, and a sense of mastery and accomplishment, but it’s even more about connecting to other people who are attuned to the same thing. So who’s the beginner? To me, it’s the person who still thinks that having good equipment and being able to ride fast is all there is, no matter how long he’s been at it. I stopped being a beginner when I realized that not only was it not about the bike, it was also not all about me. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone. Kevin Gately is a 15-year member of BTCNJ. His opinions are his own.
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