Here I am again at 35,000 ft. on my way to Europe for a wonderful week of vacation on the French Rivera.  Blue skies, crystal clear Mediterranean seas, beautiful women, Ferrari's, fine wine, blah, blah, blah.  Ooooops – check that – That's the guy in the seat next me.  Me?, Oh yeah, almost forgot – I'm off for a week of hell within the confines of a factory that's running out of space to store all the crap we build that nobody can afford to buy right now.  Perfect.

Oh well, I thought I might pass the time by documenting some interesting bike riding story or something.  Actually nothing much comes to mind.  It's still hot as hell in AZ.  Morning or night rides are not bad.  Paul and I did a SS ride yesterday – he rode by SS Goat.  Seemed like he dug it.  Tough to say, since I could barely keep up with him.  He's borrowing my SS bike for the week, which probably means he'll be hooked on SS riding by the time I get back.  As soon as I can log onto eBay, I'll check the bike listings – Paul probably has his geared bike up for auction already.

One thing I have been a little remiss in not  mentioning is my feelings about the World Trade Center terrorism.  Especially since I spent the first 33 years of my life in NY.  Julie's sister and her husband currently live in Greenwich Village and work in Midtown.  My son Ryan even spent most of the summer in NY and even visited the financial district and the WTC complex.  How scary is that?  Thankfully all are safe, but this does hit pretty close to home for me.  In fact, Julie's sister who works in Midtown shares an office with a woman who's husband worked in WTC Tower 2.  On 9/11 he never made it out of the building.

The strangest thing however, was that it took almost a full week before it all hit home for me.  Seems like until that point it was so far out of my mind that it wasn't even real.  I first heard the news on the car radio at 6 am (pacific time) on 9/11.  I was just pulling into Circle-K to get a cup of coffee on my way to work (work coffee sucks, even though it's free – always bring my own).  The first tower had just been hit and the news station had an eye-witness live via phone.  He described that a small plane had gone off course and struck the building.  As he was talking, he became frantic and said that a fire bomb had just gone off in the other tower.  I thought this was a joke or something.  Maybe a Howard Stern parody of "War Of The World's".  But as I jumped around the dial (don't you just love steering wheel mounted stereo system controls), every channel was broadcasting the same news.  So the hell with work, I drove home and told the family to turn on the TV.  Like the rest of the world I sat in horror for several hours and watched a major part of our world crumble before my eyes. 

But for some reason it had very little effect on me emotionally.  It was a tragedy but in a bazaar way it was somehow interesting to see it all unfold.  Phone calls confirmed that those I knew were safe.  Still didn’t seem possible or real.  I could have more easily believed a plane crash or a bomb or even another military action like Pearl Harbor.  But this was too outrageous to be believed and as such  seemed more like an HBO Mini-Series.  Days and days went by and I kept up on all the latest news developments, but still my life was mostly un-touched by the event and as much as I hate to admit it, I had an attitude of "Oh well, yeah, whatever.  Life goes on."

But then two events happened which brought the whole thing crushing down into a very personnel perspective for me.  On the Sunday following the attack, I set out on the usual routine of dropping my Daughter Holly off at "Hot-Church" on my way to the biking trails at South Mountain.  Hot-Church is a teen rock-n-roll Christian worship that she goes to.  She's the bass player in the band.  Pretty heavy rock actually - Certainly not what I did in church as a teen.  As for me, it's not that I'm anti-religious or anything, but I just prefer to "worship" in my own way, which usually involves some Sunday morning spiritual one-ness while peddling my ass off on a ribbon of singletrack.  I usually just swing in the church parking lot and drop Holly off at the door.  But on this Sunday, I could not even get CLOSE to the place.  Cars everywhere – all over the roads,  neighboring lots, etc.  It was PACKED.   I knew many more people than usual would probably be in church today, but I did not expect anything quite like this.  I returned from my ride and the service was still in session, so I found a parking place (not easy to do) and went inside to catch the "finale".  This is pretty casual church, so baggie biking shorts and a tee shirt were not at all out of place (nobody seemed to notice the body odor).  The place was standing room only as I found a spot against the back wall.  This is a pretty big church, actually it is more of a Broadway Theater type of auditorium.  Anyway, the ceremony ended with one of the most beautiful renditions of God Bless America that I have ever heard.  It really started to hit me just what a tragedy this was.  Maybe it was all the other people in the church crying, but I could not even sing.  It was one of the most powerful moments I can remember in a long, long time.   As we were all trying to force the words out, I kept thinking to myself, "Man, this is some serious shit".

A second, and in some ways more personnel and powerful reminder of how bad all this was came the following night.  I'm not much of a late-night TV fan (my usual bedtime is before 10 pm), but having lived in NY, there is a certain camaraderie with David Letterman.  I'm not sure what it is, but it's like West coast is Leno, NY is Letterman.  The Ed Sullivan Theater, Broadway, the NY humor, etc.  Anyway, in case you missed it, on Dave's first broadcast since the attacks he provided one of the most somber and eloquent monologues I have ever heard.  Living and broadcasting right in the shadows of the terror, Dave managed to say all the things that had been bottled up inside many of us.  Again, to see that he was so emotionally moved and effected by this just seemed to drive it home in spades to me that my city (everybody's city) had been violated in such a way that life would never again be the same for any of us.  It was like the crushing blow of reality finally hitting me upside my head. 

There are lots of great (and not so great) moments which forever change the course of history – the discovery of electricity, medical breakthroughs, the killing of 6 million Jews in WWII, Pearl Harbor, the dropping of the A-bomb, Vietnam, the invention of the computer, man on the moon, the aids epidemic, clipless pedals (just kidding).  But seriously, this was an act of man and a moment that will forever change how we act and think about certain things.  It will never be the same, but then again what IS ever the same?  David Letterman choked up and lamented  "A terrible, terrible thing has happened to our city – to our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.  To every New Yorker and to every American a terrible, terrible thing has been done."  As stupid as it sounds, this had much more impact on me than anything our President or other leaders could possible say.

How does all this relate to mountain biking?  Of course it doesn't.  But then again it does.  What in the hell makes ME so lucky that I am able to live the life I live – for the most part free from stress, poverty, illness?  I can only say that if we spend our whole lives trying to figure it out, we will have missed the point.  Some things can't and are not meant to be explained.  Go hug your kids.  Hug your loved ones.  Hug your bike.  Hell, get down on your knees and hug your favorite trail.  Think of those who you never knew, but who lost their lives to such a terrible action.  Think of those who could have run the other way, but choose freely to give their lives to help others.  Think of someone other than ourselves for a change.   And by the way, God Bless America.

Dave (September 2001)