Special Connections During a Special Bike Ride
By: Kevin McAllister
Many of our colleagues and former students ask us how we started our bike trips. If anyone knows us well enough, they will not be surprised that the conversation involved wine and a lot of joking around. Ken, Bob, Dave Andrews, and our spouses were enjoying a dinner together at my house. Ken regaled us with the story of his and Sonja’s honeymoon bike trip from Minnesota to Springfield College to start his graduate work. He still had the Raleigh Grand Prix bicycle in the basement (with the original hard-as-a-rock leather seat) that he had ridden 40 years earlier.
We laughed when we heard about sleeping under the stars or in a Little League dugout. We commiserated as we learned how he walked the bike up the hills of Route 20 near Cazenovia, New York (where my mother is from). Eventually, Dave and Bob suggested that we take trips of our own. The more wine we consumed, the more the idea grew. Bob, Ken, and I immediately agreed to start planning a trip. When asked, Dave quickly said "Hell no, but I will drive the shag wagon for you guys!” And so it began.
Our first trip was a quick 3-day journey from Deerfield, MA, to Wilmington, VT, to Adams, MA, and then back to Northampton. Bob managed to get Ken’s old bike tuned up for ‘one last ride’ (the bike tuner couldn’t guarantee it would last even for that one trip). Sonja drove us to Deerfield to start our ride. A picture of the three of us on the bikes adorned our office space until we moved across campus. We spent the next three days navigating the hills of Rt. 2 and 112, then Rt. 9 in Vermont, and finally Rt 116 outside of Adams. Apparently, Ken’s honeymoon hill rides were an omen to our eventual bike trips. Fortunately, most of the later stages of the ride were downhill on Rt. 9 in Massachusetts into Northampton, where my family met us with a cherry pie for my birthday.
Dave was probably the smart one. He never joined us on the bikes, but still enjoyed beating us in racquetball (there’s more to racquetball than racquetball). Ben joined us a few years later, which actually created a small problem. Ken retired his 40-year old Raleigh for display purposes only, but then borrowed Ben’s Bianchi for a couple of years. We all upgraded our bikes after that, and Ken eventually settled on a Giant Defy.
As we get ready for what would have been Ken’s 15th bike trip, we can’t help but reflect on how it all began. Three Springfield College department colleagues having a taste of the grape with a good friend who suggested we should start biking—how else do you come up with a crazy idea to find the next hill Ken could walk up? Biking was just the by-product of a friendship that grew from the great and humorous stories that came out of these trips. There is more to biking than simply biking. It was (and always will be) about camaraderie, collaboration, laughter, motivation, and Ken’s relentless grit to finish a day’s ride despite the times I lied about the mileage. We will keep riding to honor Ken’s international and personal legacy – he will always be with us.
