So, ultimately I lived there in Flagstaff for 27+ years beginning in 1996. Every moment of my time there was about cycling, or, as I fell off the cycling wagon, it also featured my drunkcyclist methods of living: heavy drinking.
I also can’t mention all the names of those who were there for cycling and training as well, but the force of cycling was strong there in Flagstaff in the late 90’s. Garro and the Mutants as predecessors, and the NAU cycling club as a base for many of us to develop and grow from. Our weekly rides with a few friends maybe, often solo. And there still rpsent Saturday Worlds. Ultimately, my tribe would form from there and those cycling conditions and opportunities. Life was on a good path, and Big Jonny was central to that, as we had built up a friendship over the previous years working at Domenics. I spoke briefly of that already. He moved up from Phoenix later. The date ranges of my time in FLG spread from those years in the 90’s to just a short year ago, when I left for good. Almost all of that time I identified with cycling as my purpose, even as I fell out of the professional ranks and drank more.
It was in the year 2020, covid had locked down the country. My nostalgia for cycling and my drinking were a blur and I had become that old barfly lonely at the bar that used to be fun. From my top cycling years to 2020 I had fallen into perpetual despair and there wasn’t anything that could pull me out of it. Not in that format at least, of working a 9-5 and living in FLG.
So it was moments after that decade of sitting on a bar stool that I had walked off the career computer job. Relief and dread. Just what I needed. Next steps: evacuate all material possessions, literally, except the bikes. Starting then and throughout the next few nights I would place furniture on the curb and watch it get sent down the road by some wayward late night motorist until my house was empty. And that is how I let go of everything. I will talk about this more sometime. It was a firesale on the curb. Next was the sell of the small house that the job had earned me. Gone in hours. It was just prior to this insane housing crisis we experience now. I had done it. I had gotten rid of everything but the most prize momentos. I have a box of trinkets now, and a few trophy prizes from top race wins bitd and that is all. This was good enough. Having stripped myself of all responsibility to society, I now had no other option but to wander and it was my duty to find the longest dirt roads in the world with which to do that wandering on.
Next step: pack up your bike. I spent the next few weeks in the final planning stage of my tour process. Bags were lashed, the sun was splitting the trees, it was November and it was time to move. I returned to Flagstaff and boarded the train for San Diego which would be the last U.S. town I’d see for a while.
Last step to estrangement: Ride into a world where you know no person, and you speak no usable language, fuck around, and find out.
