Rider!

Eliane and I met at college when we were both working towards arts degrees, we love our pets, but no children except for the ones my parents let me borrow for a year at a time as an English teacher, I grew-up in Brazil with my parents working as missionaries, and that is where I fell in love with the sense of adventure that I recapture every-time I ride a bicycle out in God's green Earth! I hope to inspire my students to appreciate nature.

Every school I've worked at, I have started a running group or a cycling group. At my church we started a Hike and Bike Group that produced many a good athlete as well. Most recently, I've been working with the soccer club coach. I've run websites and FB sites to promote these groups since I started. I've attempted newsletters and such to help instruct others since I've been riding for thirty some-odd years.

As a kid I rode an old beater that must have weighed a hundred pounds with big balloon tires with white walls while all my friends rode Monarks or Calois. When I first came to the states, I bought a no-name Italian bike (I guess it could have been a name-brand, but I simply don't remember). When I first got some money I bought a $500 Takara with a tange frame. I built up a classic Peugeot for my wife as a birthday gift, but it went to a friend instead. The process was really cool and have since been in love with vintage bikes. I had the tange frame way into the eighties. I wish I had known more at the time because it had Ultegra parts on it, but as soon as I had a chromolly frame I gave up on the old tange frame. The Centurion DLX seemed to be so powerful. Eventually, I had to upgrade to another Centurion, a Dave Scott - Ironman autographed frame. Both Centurions broke due to my size, when I'm at my fighting weight I'm at two-hundred pounds. My wife kindly purchased me a Caloi road frame - it was beautiful, but in two years the welds gave out at the bottom bracket. It was an enlightening experience having a brand new bike, but I needed something more permanent. At about that time a friend joined my church and became part of the Hike and Bike at church that had a ten year old Litespeed Titanium frame with Mavic wheels. Again we were building up frames the Litespeed and a new Caloi frame imported from Brazil that I got as an upgrade on the waranty on the new Caloi frame I broke. My wife and I decided to make the Caloi frame a TT rig with the parts from the other Caloi plus some new time-trial stuff added on for good measure. The Litespeed frame got all the old centurion parts again with some upgrades. On one of the wheelmen rides, the one up around Lackey, I bottom out on the lowest gear and still couldn't make it up the 17% grade without zig-zagging my way up. Since then I have had a tripple on my Litespeed and although it's a Classic, I call it the Goat. I can climb anything now without having to stand-up. All these bikes give an appreciation for something new.

I would love to ride a Cervelo TT rig and a Litespeed carbon frame so I could be the lightest little feather going up the big hills around Comfort.

My favorite ride is the Old Number Nine out of Comfort towards Fredericksburgh. At first the easy rollers are a great warm-up to get one prepped for the massive hill that comes right before you get to  Fredericksburgh where you get to pass this old rail-road tunnel (where bats come out nightly) with spectacular views of the Hill Country. The beauty out in creation was utterly appealing and one of the reasons I wanted to get a bike out on the trails.

When I first got back into riding after college I got a Trek 900 Mountain Bike. The plan was to get into triathlon so I spent ten years mostly running with a little swimming and cycling thrown in to keep my skills not sharp, but existent. Since then it has been mostly road riding. I did finish a tri a few years ago. The swim was awful and the run was more of a walk.

Besides being a bike rider, marathoner, swimmer, mountain-climber, I'm also a professional singer, as well as an elder in my church.