I met Fred Kuhn on that fateful day, 2 years ago when Dave Chauner the two time Olympic track rider who worked at Kopp’s gave me a ride to Princeton.
“Fritz” was the grand padrone of the Century Road Club of America and owner of Kopp’s Cyclery in Princeton NJ the oldest bike shop in America.
Dave had talked me out of my flight to Belgium the night before I was leaving. I had no contacts in Europe but I was all packed and ready to go with the wrong sized bike, one set of wheels some ragtag cycling gear and a few spare tires. They would have eaten me alive in Belgium but who knew?
Dave was probably stifling his laughter when he suggested that if I was serious about being a top rider at age 28, I would be better off training and racing in Princeton for a few months first. Once I had better level of fitness and race knowledge by riding with the CRC of A group then maybe I would be ready to go to Europe in June.
He talked about how tough the Dutch and Belgian kids were from racing 3 to 5 times a week in the cold rain on cobblestone streets. The races were so fast that even Dave couldn’t finish a race for the first 2 weeks he was there and that was in the summer not March. He mentioned that the rooming houses for riders did not have hot water or showers and he suggested I meet him that Sunday at a Central Park race. He offered to give me a ride to Princeton and put me up for a night while I found a place to live.
The reality of what he was saying sank in immediately. I was serious about becoming a good rider. I wasn’t going to Belgium as a tourist, so sucking it up and going to New Jersey was the right thing to do. Explaining this change in plans to my ski bum pals in Sugarbush would be tricky, but I had already been “Ground up and spit out the back” in the San Diego sunshine so it was not such a hard choice to make.
Then I met Fred, “Fritz” Kuhn.
Kopp’s Cycle was typical of many older established bike shops in the northeast. It was an old two story brick building on a back alley street where all the bikes had to be taken out of the shop each morning so customers could get inside and mechanics could assemble bikes. Fritz and the Englishman, Dick Swann ruled this world of the Century Road Club with and iron grip of old school cycling discipline that was the foundation for the many world class riders who had worn the club colors since 1896.
I had gone through quite a ceremony in Vermont just a few weeks previous when I got my first haircut in 2 years. It was my first step towards the real world and one I knew I had to make to be taken seriously as a cyclist. I wanted to start off my new racing career with a new look and I felt like a clean cut kid again, but Fritz asked how long it had been since I had my “ears lowered?” Giving up Europe for New Jersey was one thing but giving up more of my hair was another.
Time to suck it up again, another easy choice to make when confronted with this crusty old man with the hard exterior, who would determine much of my success as a rider in the coming years.
I was definitely “Nicki New Guy” in the Princeton, NJ cycling scene and as far removed from South Mission Beach as possible. “Welcome back son” I could hear my father in the form of Fritz saying to me.
Bottom line was that no “Long hair” from San Diego was going to make this team, stay in this club or learn anything if this duo did not approve. My new career as a bike racer began here. This is what I had thought about while riding across that Trans Canadian highway for days on end. “If I live through this trip, I will be strong enough to be a good bike rider.”
Finding a room to rent and a part time job along with putting in the miles regardless of the east coast weather were the basic requirements that might get noticed by the two club bosses. I was way behind on riding fitness and had to train alone in my 42 x 17 rings each day for the first 3 weeks. Thankfully the club had enough social rides and off bike functions that I knew I was in the right place.
The tradition of the oldest bike club operating out of the oldest bike shop in the country was not lost on me. There were school kids 12 to 14 years of age training and following directions from Fritz and Dick. I did not know it at the time but this club was part of the community and comparable to a Dutch or Belgian club team. There were mid-week group rides, training races, and time trials that kept all comers involved to the point where many did not have to race on weekends.
They taught the basics here and everyone respected the rules.
On the top level the club had recruited the best riders from around the country to be on the A team and it was an impressive list of riders, John Howard, John Allis, Dave Chauner, Flip Waldteufel, Bobby Phillips, Doug Dale, and Dave Boll to name a few, that would go on to dominate the racing scene for several years in America, Canada and Mexico with forays into Ireland, England, and South Africa. The odds of my getting onto the A Team were slim and none.
So when the Fritz called me in San Diego two years later to offer me the chance for an all-expense paid trip from New York to Capetown South Africa for a stage race called Tour of the Winelands, there was no hesitation on my part.
The job and the van with my dreams of settling down to a normal life of racing and training in southern California would have to wait a few more years.
I had some tough moments living in that rundown house in San Diego with two younger riders. These youngsters observed how broke I was and yet how determined I was to keep my position as a top ranked rider.
I kept a vision in my head, “Put a camera on me now because from this humble life I am going travel on airplanes, stay in nice hotels and race with the best in far-away lands,” and I did.
My next priority that winter, after finding a job was to strengthen the weakest part of my racing. My mental toughness had come into question during the previous season. The stress of little or no financial stability led to predictable tactics during races that were easy for lesser riders to exploit.
In short the weakest part of my game was my mind and I was determined to take a course in Transcendental Meditation in order to relieve the stress of racing, to think more clearly, and to reduce the anger which had been driving me for the initial years of my career.
The anger and negative energy came from several sources and it was actually helpful in driving me to top placings on many occasions but ultimately I had to find a more purposeful way of keeping my emotions in check in order to reach the next level of racing and a better level of personality.
Cycling was a niche sport getting little attention from the main stream media. Knowing that cycling was the number two spectator sport in the rest of the world was exasperating for those of us racing here and in Europe. Having read Sports Illustrated from cover to cover over its first 14 years, I was convinced that cycling was more difficult to master than any sport they covered.
I would take my frustrations out on the whole peloton of riders during major US races by attacking way to hard and way to early with no regard to saving myself strategically for the critical moves that would come later. I was fortunate to have a big engine and I could recover from my mistakes, but often times I was all used up and did not get the higher placings I was capable of.
My mindset was: It was Sunday and if I was not going to be out on the beach or playing co-ed softball somewhere, if I was giving up a good party to be in a 100 mile bike race then I better be good at it and everyone else was going to suffer. If I wasn’t going to win I was going to make sure that everyone knew I was there racing and not just sitting in the bunch afraid to make a move to express myself.
Many riders of the era had the same frustrations even if they did not have the heart to enforce their personality on the race. There was no place after a racing career to stay involved with the sport and make a living. Many good riders would quit racing and open a bike shop or become a race officials in their spare time. But often times this negative energy would carry over into these positions and have an adverse effect on newcomers to the sport. The entry into the sport many times started at a bike shop or at an actual race where the energy was poisonous and not welcoming. As riders it was a self fulfilling process that kept snowballing along even though the sport was in fact growing and gaining more recognition with bigger sponsors and races.
Amidst all this craziness I was trying to improve upon my own personal shortcomings and the bike was the vehicle that was teaching me to be a better person. It was a love hate relationship that kept me out of trouble and allowed me to travel the world. It was the only thing I had done for more than one year at a time since I had flunked out of college the first time 9 years previous.
In a letter written to my parents in September of 1974 I wrote:
“If I have learned anything about myself this past season it’s that my negative attitude has finally got to be corrected. It is amazing that I do as well as I do in this sport with such a weak attitude. Every Sunday since March 17th I’ve put myself through a very grueling and mentally exhausting test. All the time learning and piecing things together and getting a little closer to me. There is no place to hide during all this. I am constantly questioning myself and although my performances are better than average there is much room for improvement.
I know how old I am and what most people have accomplished by 30 and I can’t race a bike forever, but as long as I’m learning from it and have one or two competitive years left I’m going to stay with it.
I might be hiding from everything, living in this small but growing world of bike racing but I try to stay objective and I don’t think that is it.”
I counted my pennies and wrote down everything I spent money on each day so that I could afford to take the Transcendental Meditation course that winter. It was crucial to my success in upcoming seasons both on and off the bike.
My boss at the aquarium company could not believe I was going to quit the job that I had just started. He knew how old I was and how tough the job market was. He had over 60 applicants apply for, the job I was about to quit. “To what? Fly off to South Africa for a bicycle race? What was I going to do when that race was over? Come back and look for a job?”
I had saved just enough money to get my Cinelli out of hock and now I was scheming on how to pay for the flight to New York City so I could get the free round trip to Cape Town.
Could I dare go back to OMBAC one more time for just the one way red eye fare ($100.) to New York?
I had no other choice.