About me, where it all started.

When I started riding a bike I still remember the first ride, with no one holding me, no training wheels and pedaling away for the very first time. The ride lasted as long as the straight driveway did and then BAMM right into the side of the building. I figured that was as bad as it was ever going to get, just riding the bike, I mean how much worse could I hurt myself than slamming into a permanent structure? Well I would hurt myself more than that, only because I wanted make my bike fly once I was up and riding.

After learning to stay on my bike and not run right into objects, I soon learned I wanted to go fast and I wanted to do stuff a lot of other kids couldn’t. I also found the more expensive higher end bikes, my first being the Schwinn Predator.

Not mine but the same model

I was a BMX rider and freestyler or at least considered myself one, I was never really awesome at either but like the kids you sometimes see today trying skateboard tricks over and over till they get them right, I was the kid on the bike doing the same thing. I loved speeding around the city of Fall River, Massachusetts on my bike. Twisting, jumping everything and anything and racing around from sun up to sundown around the city. The wind in my face the rush of weaving in and out of traffic (I am not suggesting this to the kids out there, this is what I did, not necessarily what anyone else should do and not really the smartest thing either, I was not a bright kid, but I was adventurous) It is a strange thing I notice or don’t notice now. Kids are not out there all over on their bikes, or on the baseball fields or really doing anything outside. Hey I get it at the height of a summer day (especially here in St Louis where it feels like 130 degrees) it is sticky and uncomfortable. But even in Massachusetts where I know it got hot out, I don’t remember, being too hot to go for long rides on my bike, with friends.

Some days we just rode, from one end of the city to the other. Other days we had a place to go, fishing at Cook Pond, the bike shop, the BMX track hell just the store for a soda and a bag of chips to hold us over till we had to get home for dinner.

My Predator was stolen, so when I got a new bike a Haro FST Freestyler.

Both similar but again not mine just an example

My friends and myself would set up ramps and jump over anything we could find for a challenge, and try not to kill ourselves along the bruised and bloody kneed time I called my childhood. That was our good time, passing the days away creating new challenges for ourselves. Sometimes it was riding as fast as our legs could take us, going down the hills in the city (to which there are many) to take that speed a step further. Other times setting up any kind of ramp or jump out of old plywood laying around (which splinters were many and thank God for tetanus shots) We would find areas where we could speed down a loading ramp or anything else that would make our bikes go to jump off of or over anything in our way.

I lived on my bike. And not that other kids wouldn’t be heartbroken if their bikes got stolen, but twice I had mine stolen (once it was locked up and the chain was cut another I was a moron and left it in the front yard) I was devastated both times. The first was the Predator, the second was one of two Haro bikes I owned (same model both times) I was also taught a valuable lesson (especially from the unlocked situation) to protect things you value. I got what would be my last bike that I rode well into high school, then once I was a licensed driver the bike sat unused. I remember the day I saw it in the front trash, my dad figured it had at that point had two flats and was just collecting dust. I argued that I would ride again. But now involved with girls, cars and other stuff you find more important as a teen, it just was not true, and soon after the bike was thrown away. I have been through a lot since that day, joined the military, got married (multiple times) had kids went to college, made documentaries that traveled the world (I did not go with them as I could not afford to) and started a career in Television that I am still in today along with my wife of almost ten years.

I am now forty years old and since turning forty, I have rediscovered things from my childhood with an adult perspective, older music and movies, I had not listened to or watched in years, comics, wanting to go camping and one day I realized I wanted to ride a bike again. This time not a BMX but a mountain bike. So I am starting this journey at perhaps the end of another, years of doing a lot of things inside (similar to the kids of today) And not spending enough time with family in simple things like exercising. Like most things in my life it was a slow process of gathering info, through magazines, websites, talking to friends and reading books. But Once I decided to take the plunge it was full steam ahead. And although this post is mostly about Mountain biking, there is a similar path to the beer making I will discuss in another post. (no I did not ride around the city of Fall River drunk off my ass as a kid, this story takes place more so at the end of my BMX riding) Anyway, I never do things I want to do halfway, so this blog is for me an outlet.

If I get two of you to read it or thousands, it is just a creative outlet to let me document my journey. (and after years of making movies, my wife likes a creative outlet that she does not have to lug lights and equipment around as well as dropping a small fortune into something that did not bring much cash back, I made a little under 2 grand making movies and trust me spent a lot more) So Enjoy…..There is more to come!