Land of the Longhorn

This past Christmas Angela gave me the very thoughtful and selfless gift of a plane ticket to Austin, TX for some early season warm weather miles and to reunite with my great friend Brandon Richter. Brandon is no stranger to bicycle retail, his resume includes shops such as Village Bike Shop, Antoons Bike Shop, Continental Bike Shop, Chain Wheel Drive (Fl), and now Bicycle Sport Shop (Austin, TX), he was also the top sales associate in the Midwest for Independent Fabrication.

I met Brandon during a very pivotal time of my life; I was just starting to ride more seriously. In addition, I had just graduated from college, finished a post-graduation season long binge of snowboarding, and was finally conceding that I was going to have to move back home with my parents and search for a more career oriented job. Brandon just happened to call me on me on my final trek home from Kalamazoo. I had all of my belongings loaded up in may car, was heading in a direction I didn’t really want to go, and had no job lined up whatsoever. Bob Dylan was playing and I was trying to wrap my head around the thought that the “best years of my life” were now behind me…now what? That is when I got the call offering me an exciting job at Antoons. At the time, it gave me hope. I had never met Brandon before, but during my interview we instantly connected and have been very close friends since. My first recollection of Brandon was asking him when I could employee purchase a new cross bike. His response was, “Well, technically our policy is that you have to work here for three months before you can do that, but you seem pretty passionate…if I let you fill the paperwork out today, you promise me you won’t screw me and quit after you get it?” We ordered the bike the day of my interview and Brandon has been pressuring me to buy bikes and more parts ever since. His famous move was to put new parts on my bikes while I unknowingly built up my employee layaway account. In 2002, just after 10spd Dura-Ace was released, he swapped my entire 9spd group to 10spd the night before the State Road Race without my consent. His justification was always that he knew I would love it…he was right.

Fast forward to the present. My flight to Austin was pretty nice, I shared the plane with 30 girls from the U of M softball team and some Hansen’s runners getting ready to race the Austin Marathon on Sunday. Needless to say we had some good conversation and exchanged the pleasures and pains of being addicted to our sports.

Brandon greeted me at the airport with two ice cold Sierra Nevadas, perfect tranquility fuel after a long flight and an even longer day at work. We went immediately to John Korioth and Lance Armstrong’s bar Six. I forgot what it feels like to be in a town where the economy is not only stable but thriving and people are happy, healthy, and seem to have their priorities straight…I don’t think I’ve seen one “pimped out” H2 since I’ve been here! We celebrated our reunion the rest of the evening with many cowboy pops!


This morning we woke up, ate, and headed over to Bicycle Sport Shop. The shop is owned and operated by Hill Abell, the IMBA President, huge cycling advocate, and all around great guy.



Bicycle Sport Shop is a Mecca of all things to two-wheeled!



The shop was gracious enough to allow me to ride a rental 2008 Madone 5.1 free of charge. It also happened to match the Wolverine Kits just perfectly.



After I got the fit of the bike dialed in we headed out for a nice leisurely loop to get to know the town and the roads.


Despite some bad luck, we had a great ride. I hit a razor blade in the middle of nowhere and slashed my tire from bead to bead. As a testament to how great the employees at BSS are…one call, and minutes later a car pulled up with a new wheel and we were back on our way for more miles.

Tomorrow I am meeting up with “the fast group” ride out of the shop in the morning. I have aspirations of an epic ride day but fear that they may become unfulfilled due to projected inclement weather. If so, oh well…I’m still having a good time.