Born To Race

It is the end of the last hill, less than a mile to the finish. They are whooshing past, the top five, maintaining a snug distance from the rest. Keeping pace is herculean on this last hump. Suddenly, there is commotion behind – a crash. A few riders have to stop. Don has a perfect spot – nobody behind him and only five ahead, all from another team. With 200 meters to go, he senses the person next to him slow and before he can lose his momentum, he takes off. “I went flying by those guys and because I had the element of surprise and the momentum, I got a nice gap. Right Away! I looked back and I had it.” A sparkle lights up his face as Don vibrantly recounts every vivid detail of The Washington State Biking Championship, twelve years ago.

Growing up in Ohio with three brothers, a sister and a sports enthusiast for a dad, Don Stimson played many sports. Watching a bike race once in Dayton, he thought they must be crazy zipping like that. He learned to ride a bike (a Schwinn 5 speed, stick shift with a banana seat) at almost 6 or 7 years old – much later than my friends, he thought.

Don’s wife Leslie, an avid runner would love to see him hang up his bike. She has had a lot of experience caring for an on-and-off invalid these past few years. The ‘road rashes’, when the asphalt rips through your skin are quick to heal – a week maybe. Even the time he broke his shoulder blade wasn’t too bad. He lost some sleep, had to make do with hiking and in 4 weeks was riding again. There was the time he broke his collarbone, dislocated his thumb, went into surgery and 10 weeks later he was back on his bike like new. The one that gave him a pause – he had broken two bones on his back and torn a few ligaments on his fingers and broken a thumb. With the bunion surgery, pressing down hard on the feet to stand up or sprint on the bike hasn’t been easy.

‘You’re going to have to get a real bike’, Leslie had said 30 years ago. It was her that got him into biking, to share in her love for it. He had a $10 bike from a garage sale, just to get to the locker rooms at Boeing after post lunch runs. With no riding experience, he upgraded to a Sports Bike, a cross between the comfortable, laid back Touring Bike and the twitchy, lightweight Racing Bike. Loaded with camping equipment, they made several trips, rain or shine. They picked all the flat rides from a book – ‘Bicycling the back roads of Puget Sound.’ While Leslie was happy with a ‘toodledo’, Don caught the racing bug and got hooked.

Bike racing is a backbreaking phenomenon. You ride all year long. In freezing conditions, you substitute with spin classes or a trainer in your garage. Graded one of Category 1 through 5, with 1 on top, based on age and agility, you train with a racing team, riding 50-60miles every weekend. Once a month, you do a ‘Hardman Hundy’, a 100mile race. You race on city streets (Criterium), on a racetrack, in open road races or stage races which are a combination.

Don has been an avid Category 3 racer for 24 years. A couple of years, he qualified for a Category 2, but riding with the Category 1 was daunting. Some years, he joins friends as a bystander at the Tour De France. Cars parked miles away they ride long distances to watch the race. Then they trace a few of the harder climbs. No, we cannot do the entire route, he says. That’s a good 3000 miles. On one occasion he got to do the La Marmotte, 5 of the bigger climbs. At close to 17,000 feet climb it was the hardest 100 miles he has done in a day. Leslie framed all his medals.

Work definitely got in the way, Don chuckles. But it paid the bills.  Bike racing is an expensive sport. From a $3000 first bike, Don has come a long way to a $7000 bike, which he maintains himself. Good lightweight carbon fiber wheels could cost $1000 a piece. Then the annual cost of the team kit of jerseys and shorts, the vest, the shoes, socks and racing fees all add up.

Just over 5’5” and 125lbs, Don is one lean, well-oiled machine, built to fly. He walks softly, sits lightly and speaks quietly. As an Aerospace Engineer at the FAA, Don worked on regulatory standards & policy. Airplane performance, speed, runway lengths are his turf. Like a kid with a toy airplane, Don expounds the dynamics of bike racing, dexterously moving his arms with his eyes following along. At those high speeds, aerodynamics is a key factor. If you ride behind somebody, you spend 30% less energy. The trick is to spend least amount of time in the ‘wind’. There are the designated ‘good finishers’ and the pack of ‘domestiques’ trying to protect them. You let somebody ‘take your wheel’, when he wants to move up. When it gets to the end before a sprint, you try to have somebody do a ‘lead out’. For a yellow jersey team, the only goal is to defend the yellow jerseys, not to individually win the race. The feeling that you helped a teammate win – that feels pretty good. He smiles triumphantly.

Bike racing is inherently risky. You are a close tight knit group doing high speeds. Somebody makes a mistake and you get hit. It’s not even always the racing. “Sometimes when I am driving and I see people texting”, he says “I am glad I am not on my bike right now.” Your predictability and stability are put to test.

Why race? “There is something about the adrenaline in a competitive sport, “ he says. “It is a team sport where you have the choice to go it alone. There is no feeling like winning a race!” The joy in the camaraderie is boundless.

Don retired in May last year. Now, he is also busy racing in unfamiliar territory. The brain map can be changed at any age, he has read. He is exploring courses on biology, genomics, food chemistry, astrophysics, and human evolution – all online. He is learning to play the guitar – online. There is the yard work, the running and hiking to do. It was tough keeping pace while working. No, he is not retiring from biking.

“A whole week of weekends is what he has now”, smiles Leslie, whose tryst with running is another story waiting to be told.