Bikecology, Bob Jackson, and Ron Cooper

Sometimes, it's interesting how your life is actually a lot more intertwined with someone else's life - even though neither one of you realizes it at the time. But more on that later...

I started this blog soon after my friend, Dennis Pedersen, started his blog ( you can read his musings here ). Dennis is one of the few cyclists on my team, the Santa Cruz County Cycling Club (SCCCC), who likes to do road races - the SCCCC is really more of a cyclocross club, judging by their focus on those kinds of races. In fact, Dennis will now be doing a lot his road races for a new team he just joined, The Bicycle Trip. Maybe I'll get a chance to join him one day, after I improve my climbing next year (I'll devote a separate article to this one day).

Although I've only known Dennis for a relatively short time, I've noticed that he and I have a lot in common, mostly bike-related, of course. He started actively racing road bikes in the last two or three years, and I just started racing road again in the last two or three months, although I originally raced road bikes way back in the mid-1970s for a couple of years.

And, Dennis is quite passionate about training and racing, which is something that I've rediscovered in myself these last couple of years (And that is why next year will entail a full racing schedule for me - my wife, Becky, doesn't know that yet - but my passion for bike riding/racing is no secret to her - and she and my kids have started to show a lot more interest in supporting my "bad habit", as they like to think of it)....

So I was reading one of Dennis' recent posts, entitled My Cycling History and was quite amused when I saw him make a reference to a catalog for a bike store that he used to read ( because, as he pointed out, it was all he could afford back in those days! ).

Well, the catalog he mentioned was for a bike store called Bikecology - and it amused me for a very simple reason: I worked there for a couple of years, as a part-time job while putting myself through school at UCLA - and I think I just saw Dennis smile, assuming he's reading it right now (right, Dennis?).

And, I was even more amused when Dennis made a reference to the Bob Jackson bike that he dreamed of owning one day, but was way too expensive for him at the time. Well, we sold Bob Jackson bikes at Bikecology, as well as another English-built custom bike, Ron Cooper. They were both great bikes - and I, too, dreamed of the day when I could afford one of those cool bikes - I had a relatively mid-range Nishiki at the time ( it was all that I could afford, being a poor college student, of course ). Here's a cool link I found that compared these two great bikes: http://www.veloworks.com/roncooper/cooper1976.html.

Well, since I worked as a part-time mechanic at Bikecology, I was presented a unique opportunity one day. One of our customers had ordered a black Ron Cooper frame and when it arrived at our shop ( on Santa Monica Blvd. ), the manager of the shop noticed there was a very minor ding in the top tube of the frame (probably happened after it left England, during shipping to our store). When he showed it to the customer, they didn't like the ding and said they would wait until a replacement frame could be sent from England. The ding was not critical, in terms of the integrity of the frame - it was just a small cosmetic thing.

Now my manager, a really strong cyclist named Manny, knew I was just getting into road racing and asked me if I would be interested in buying the "damaged" frame from him - at a very good discount from the normal wholesale price. Really? Wooooooohooooo!!! I had (barely) enough in my bank account to buy just the frame, which just happened to be the size I needed. And Manny was kind enough to let me build up the bike after work, and even loaned me the money to purchase a lot of the high-end Suntour components I used to outfit my new bike - Campy was just way too expensive!

I was so excited about the prospect of having this incredible racing machine - and promptly went out to train even harder with my racing buddy, Danny Escalzo. He and I had accidentally gotten involved in road racing when we inadvertently joined a famous training ride in the local area - the Sunday Death Ride, which was a lot like any of the big group training rides that happen every weekend here in the Bay Area (like the Spectrum Ride or the Crow's Nest Ride on Saturday mornings).

Danny and I were out for one of our fun Sunday rides, riding from where we lived near UCLA down to Highway 1 (via Sunset Blvd), then turning north on Highway 1 to head up towards Oxnard and back (about a 100 mile ride). After riding for a couple of miles along Highway 1, we were suddenly passed by a huge pack of riders - at least 60 or 70 that day - and quickly hopped onto the back of the pack to ride with them. It turned out to be that famous Sunday Death Ride (which we had never heard about, since we weren't into racing at that point) - and after successfully staying with the pack all the way up to the turnaround point (which was at a little mini-market somewhere near Leo Carrillo State Beach) and then back to Santa Monica, we were invited by a guy named Maury to join his club, the North Hollywood Wheelmen.

So we did. And thus began my passion with racing road bikes - on the coolest racing bike I could ever imagine!

I entered a lot of road races and criteriums with my black Ron Cooper bike back in those fun college days during the mid-1970s. It was a truly magical time and passed all too quickly.

It's too bad I wandered away from the bike racing world after I graduated from UCLA and came up here to the Bay Area to start my career. But, at least I have a chance to enjoy those times once again, racing my new '08 Trek Madone (a black one, no less!) with my new club, Team Santa Cruz ( SCCCC ) - and hopefully, getting to employ some sort of team tactics with Dennis and a few others on both SCCCC and Team Bicycle Trip.

It's so interesting to see how lives become intertwined sometimes...and in the most unexpected ways, too! I hadn't thought about Bikecology and my first real racing bike, that Ron Cooper, for a very long time...

Thanks, Dennis!