The Grand Master
Have you ever had “The Teacher”? The person that has not
only mastered the subject, but can teach and share the subject flawlessly with
others? And yet the mastery of the
subject does not end with the subject but has then flowed into all aspects of
life? If you have met such a
teacher you probably know it at some level and are thankful for it
everyday. That is what I found in
the Grand Master.
The Grand Master is the person I met when I had truly
dedicated myself to mountain biking.
I had moved to New Hampshire with Matt to study birds and race mountain
bikes. When Matt told me it was
time to go riding after an eight hour day of hiking the hills of the White
Mountains, I got on my bike. When
we had our one-day off bird research we raced our bikes. I ate five full meals a day, and a tub
of Ben and Jerry’s every night and still lost weight that summer. Then Matt took me to the Wednesday
night ride.
The Wednesday night ride was “the ride” of Plymouth. The riders consisted of very fast
people. Cat 1 roadies, expert to
pro mountain bikers and crazy fast locals from the ski resort ski coaches to
the local mailman. And one guy who
worked construction and was the former NORBA New England Mountain Bike
Champion, Chip Miller. Everyone called
him the Grand Master. I had no
business on that ride at all.
I went the first week and got my legs ripped off. What does that mean? It means you go on a group ride and the
pace picks up to such a degree that your legs sear in a sea of lactic acid pain
that is almost unimaginable to me now. Now the group (or pack as cyclist refer to it) moves along quickly with a fresh fast guy driving the pace at the front and then resting in the pack out of the wind. The pack operates similarly to a pack of geese flying in formation. If you share a similar fitness to those you are riding with it is fun and comfortable with efforts thrown in when you decide you want to work hard. When you are with a group of people much faster than you, you struggle to stay with the pack. Sticking with the pack you can almost get sucked along with the group, protected from the wind. As soon as you lose the pack, you realize they are moving faster than you could ever move alone. This is called getting dropped. When you get dropped, you have two hopes:
1. Someone is behind you and will help you get back to the group eventually (maybe they will stop and regroup at the next stop sign) or show you the way home.
2. You know the way home.
There is a third scenario you never want to find yourself in (and yes I have). You are the first person to get dropped. You may never see the group again and you never want to go back to the ride because the shame is too great. You also may not know the way home.
1. Someone is behind you and will help you get back to the group eventually (maybe they will stop and regroup at the next stop sign) or show you the way home.
2. You know the way home.
There is a third scenario you never want to find yourself in (and yes I have). You are the first person to get dropped. You may never see the group again and you never want to go back to the ride because the shame is too great. You also may not know the way home.
On my first Wednesday night ride I was in one
to all of those situations throughout the evening sucking beyond your wildest
imagings of suck. But throughout
the ride I would see this smiling face, and twinkling eyes of the man everyone
called the Grand Master. “Catch
this guys wheel now Karen.” he might advise in his perfect New England accent.
He would sometimes push my bike up to the group to make sure I stayed in the
draft of the pack reducing my work load by 30 – 50%. The Grand Master would always be around smiling and
encouraging me no matter how much I sucked and at the end of the ride he would
tell me how great I had done (when in fact I had sucked, but had worked very
hard) and every Wednesday would tell me to come back. Now I realize the Grand Master was working twice as hard as he needed to be in order to keep me in the group. And in cycling where your worth is often measured by how fast you were during the ride, he was sacrificing his speed to help me stay with group.
Now there was the Grand Master, and then there was Rhino
Bikeworks, the local bike shop. I was poor, really poor. I was a student with student loans, I
was doing bird research with Matt and being Canadians it always took awhile for
our paperwork to clear and our pay to start in the US. Matt and I were partly
racing because the races paid cash and it would cover our groceries. Rhino
Bikeworks would take my bike in and fix it for no charge and give me deals on my bike parts. They kept my poor old mountain bike limping along that entire summer. Eventually they would find all of my sponsorship connections.
Then there were the other students of the Grand Masters, the guys (Ben, Tyler, Avery and Buck). They would invite Matt along to ride
and would kindly include me as well even though I was about half their
speed. We would go on long
mountain bike rides over terrain I had never imagined a bike could maneuver. They would show me how to move my bike
over rocks and roots and laugh with me and not at me and somehow never made me
feel inadequate (which I was).
I think it is uncommon to feel so accepted in a group, or
see so much kindness and encouragement.
I have since thought back on those days because they changed my
life. And though at the time I
thought everyone was showing respect to the Grand Master, I realize now that it
was earned reverence. You see,
Chip Miller was truly at the center of that community. If you look at the cover of The Guide to Mountain Biking in the White Mountains,
you will see Chip Miller on the cover with other local legend Craig. They had personally mapped out most of
the routes. When people tell you about the early days of mountain bike racing
you soon found out no one beat Chip Miller, and no one made the scene more
fun. He had found the routes we
road, he started the Wednesday night ride. He had never missed one Wednesday night group ride. When he needed to have shoulder surgery
he scheduled it in the winter so he would be ready to ride the Wednesday night
ride the next spring. But these are details that are revealed slowly and over
time, and never by Chip himself, so you are never blown away by the greatness
of this man all at once.
Sometimes magic is happening around you and you don’t know
it at the time. Which is a
different kind of magic than we are use to. It is not in your face or obvious, but instead unfolds
quietly over time. Here is the
magic that happened right in front of me.
Remember how Chip Miller was always there when I sucked? Pushing me back up to the group,
teaching me the rules of the road, telling me the tricks of road riding? He was also there when I got faster. In fact, no one ever
waited for the Grand Master on the Wednesday night ride at the regroups. He always rolled up looking calm and
refreshed and smiling with a twinkle in his eye, always about to say something
funny and make everyone laugh. So
how was it he was back there with me when I was sucking so badly? And back
there for whoever needed him, yet still was always keeping the ride on track,
always catching up to the fastest riders by the end of a climb or town line
sprint?
Now, when I met Chip Miller he was no longer living the life
of a Pro athlete. He was waking up
at 4 in the morning, driving 2 hours to work, working on construction projects
all day in the hot New England sun, driving 2 hours back home, jumping into his
bike clothes and riding the Wednesday night ride. Then he wouldn’t get on his bike again until Saturday or
Sunday for a nice long mountain bike ride through the mountains. The Grand
Master spent two to three days at most, per week on his bike. The rest of the time he spent with his
sweet family, fishing with his son and daughter, visiting his father, going to
church every Sunday, and going to bed every night at 8pm to wake up again at
4am. How do I know this? Because Chip and his wife Sheila (one
of the most capable women I know) took me in for two summers when I became a
homeless mountain bike racer. I never saw him sad, or short with his
family. He only ever showed me and
other people around him kindness, compassion and humor all the weeks I lived
with him. The same is true from
his whole family. Now that I have
a family of my own, I now realize this is unbelievable, truly magic.
This is no ordinary person. But somehow he seemed to appear ordinary. You may not expect the guy working on
your house to have figured out most of life’s secrets, or that so much could be
learned from riding a bike. But
there it was. I suppose it was
Albert Einstein who famously said, “Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your
balance you must keep moving”. The Grand Master’s values radiated through an
entire community. From the bike
shop that took care of me, to Ben, Tyler, Avery and Adam who took care of me
like brothers through my travels (Tyler even rescuing me as far away as Italy). The Grand Master believed in me well
before I ever did and that made a world of difference.
I look back at that time and try and collect all the lessons
I learned from the Grand Master and Plymouth. Many of which took much more
practice and learning to even understand let alone perfect. I take all I can from my lessons in
Plymouth and with the Grand Master and I try and use them as much as possible,
and share them when and if I can.
Can we all create our own Plymouth if we practice what the Grand Master
lives? Communities that help
people reach their goals and dreams and potential? I feel like that is where the real magic and hope lies for
this world and probably always has.
Here are just a few things I believe I learned from Chip
Miller, the Grand Master and would like to try and share:
1.
Maintain a healthy body. It will serve you well.
2.
Maintain a healthy mind. It will help others.
3.
Find happiness where you can, let yourself have
it. It is good for you and others. When you are happy you can give to others.
4.
Find
peace. Go fishing, go to the
forest, it is nice there.
5.
Cultivate kindness, compassion and empathy – you
will change yourself and others for the better.
6.
Be Generous – remember, when you are happy you
can give.
7.
Learn and Teach - Teachers have students, and
students can become friends, and friends help keep you safe and happy. This is
the basis of a community.
8.
Transforming people transforms a community.
9.
A strong community will take many people where
they need to go in the world.
10. Have a sense of humour – laughing
transforms fear, anger and sadness.
And on that note I will leave you with this. Try not to take yourself too seriously.
