Thank you, Wheelworks! For the $1G and that Felt

Fundraising update: $460 raised; $39540 to go
B3FI: $859.57/wk

  It's a good fundraising day today!  This morning I received the following message from Joe S., the owner of Davis Wheelworks: "Quick reply here...taxiing on airport runway. Will do $1k."  Nevermind the fact that he's probably texting well after the flight attendants told him not to, that '$1k' means he's committed to matching the first $1000 of  donations made until the end of July.  Thank you, Joe!
   For those of you who aren't from Davis or aren't cyclists, out of the 7 bike shops in town, Davis Wheelworks is the most high profile and high end shop in town.  It caters to road cyclists and triathletes looking to put something really fast between their legs.  My relationship with Wheelworks goes back to 2002, when it was owned by Steve Larsen, a Davis native and former pro road cyclist, mountain biker, and triathlete.  I wandered in there in January 2002 not having a clue about what I was looking for.  What a noob I must have looked, dressed in felted Birkenstocks, mismatched socks (socks! with Birkenstocks!), torn Grammicis, and a big UPenn NROTC cotton hoodie.  Steve himself helped me and spent several hours, including two of them past closing time, talking to me seriously about bikes and sending me out on test ride after test ride to find the one that worked best for me. 

  I finally settled on an entry level Felt 75 and that was pretty much all she wrote.  I rode that thing like the devil after I got it, getting in over 6000 miles in my first year of riding.  What I remember most, ironically, was the lack of pain.  My knees have always given me problems when I exercised, but for some reason cycling, for the first three years at least, didn't bother them at all.  I still remember the sense of speed and joy and freedom I felt just hammering my brains out on the road for hour after hour.  Especially after my dad died later that first Winter, it seemed like all I really wanted to do was ride and ride and ride.  I had almost all of my significant cycling firsts on that bike: first ride out to Winters and back, first rides up Cardiac and Cantelow and Mix, first rides up Cardiac and Cantelow and Mix without stopping, first crash on the way down Mix, first ride on the American River Bike Trail, first metric century, first century, first double century, first flat tire (at mile 196 of my first double century!), first Tue/Thu race ride.

  I sold that Felt after about a year of riding on it and Steve sold the shop to Joe S. and moved back up to Bend soon after that.  Awesomely, as far as I know that Felt has been the first road bike for two other people now, including another NorCal AIDS Cycler.  And I still see it around Davis occasionally, going fast between someone else's legs.