Monday 27 November 2006

Tim Brezsnyak


I’d always been a motivated recreational cyclist, from my earliest days on a bike as a kid, I’d known that I suffered The Addiction. I carried the promise to myself that after the self imposed priorities of university and CFA were completed, thus liberating my spring’s, I was going to try AT LEAST ONE mountain bike race. At that time, I didn’t know if the intensity of racing would enhance or ruin my favourite hobby.

Funny as it sounds, I had no idea how to go about getting myself into a bike race. My buddy’s room mate worked at Bow Cycle, so one afternoon when I was picking up some bike parts at the shop, I walked found Kevin at the shop and said I wanted to try racing. The words felt strange rolling off my tongue. How would this sound to Kevin, who I’d only known as an acquaintance. Was I coming across as someone who thought I had something to prove by lining up toe to toe with racers who knew what they were doing when I didn’t have a clue? Fortunately, Kevin didn’t sense any of my introspective self doubt. He asked if I wanted to do mountain or road racing. I said I’d probably try mountain biking.

“No problem, call Tim Brezsnyak. He’s a deadgoat.” Brezs-ny-ak stuck in my mind right away, as did deadgoat. He didn’t even think for a second before making the recommendation… It was like “oh, you have a headache? Here, take two aspirin.” I get a phone number on a slip of paper and head home. I wonder what I’m getting myself into with directions to contact an organization called deadgoats. How do I explain this to anyone I know? I decided I better keep it on the down-low until I figure out what it’s all about. Apparently Tim had the answer to what I’d been craving for the first 21 years of my life. To say I was excited was an understatement.

I cold call Tim, who obviously didn’t know me from a hole in the ground. It felt like I was calling a dealer, other than the fact I stated my name up front. “Hi Tim, my name is Erik Bakke. I got your number from a guy at Bow. I want to try mountain bike racing.” As odd as it felt from my end to call a stranger, it didn’t phase Tim a bit. 5 years later, I understand completely.

Unfortunately that’s a long winded introduction to a story that’s supposed to be about Tim. As I came to know, Tim is a people person. In fact, he defines “people person” in my mind like Dallas defines "big engine”. As it turns out, I still picture Tim as a bit of a dealer – his product is mountain biking. He was the first guy I ever knew, other than my dad, that liked bikes “that much”. Maybe in retrospect I had some sort of misconception of adults, but bikes are, you know, kids toys. I thought I was odd in my obsession, or maybe it was just a family thing. Discovering that “there were others” was comforting. We talked for a while – where club rides were, how to actually join the club, how you had to pay for an ABA license, etc. Conversing with Tim, as complete strangers, was incredibly easy. That’s just the kind of guy he is, and now I know why his calling in life was to be el Presidente of a bike club. I didn’t really care about the details, I just wanted to show up with a cheque and start riding with people. Conveniently, the first club ride I went on was only 15 minutes from my house through Bowmont slopes, featuring the trail Sideshow. I’d ridden sideshow a lot as a kid, so I had some comfort going into the ride. We’re scheduled to meet in a parking lot nearby, and I do my best to show up early. I didn’t know who I was meeting, but presumably bikes would be the identifier. It turns out Tim was the first guy I run into. He’s pulling something out of his truck I’d never conceived of before – a single speed. I didn’t know what to think. I had BMX bikes when I was a kid… but this was confusing. I wanted to get into serious biking, not kid shit. Other people started showing up… and to be honest I forget who else was there. I’m not particularly good with names, I was nervous, and this single speed thing was really trippin’ me out.

To reach Sideshow from the Montgomery Safeway, you have to climb Home Road. On a world scale, Home Road is nothing but a little blip. But on the local, kid growing up in the area sense, it’s a big hill that’s got a kicker of a grade to it. I shift down a gear or two on approach, and look over to see Tim standing on the pedals. Halfway up the hill, I’m breathing pretty damn hard just to keep up, and this is “just” the club ride. A few years later experience teaches me that you just gotta climb at a certain speed on a SS bike, but it didn’t dawn on me then. We coast down to the start of Sideshow, and Tim stands to climb up to the elevation of the traverse. I make a point of riding behind him, and notice he’s got a stylized red goat skull tattoo on his calf. Not just any calf, mind you. It’s a single speeder’s calf. Cyclists are bone, muscle and smiles. This calf said he was no rookie. The traverse has lots of rollers, and he’s cruising them so smooth - just blasting up the little inclines. I’m working super hard to keep up. Before we get to the first natural regroup spot, my mind is clear – this is badass, this is for real. These are the kind of mountain bikers I need to learn from. I’ve just met a stranger with a deadgoat tattoo who’s blasting off on a bike with one gear. He’s smiling continually, there’s no social barrier with this guy.

Tim mostly mountain bikes, and much of it is done on single speed. After one of my favourite road trips of all time, down to Colorado for some late summer riding, I felt I’d be in great shape for the 2004 edition of the Bow 80 mountain bike race. Underneath it all I probably was in good shape for it, but the one downside to the road trip was I got the worst food poisoning of my life, from Denver’s upscale “Little Russian Restaurant”. One of the egg salad type appetizers wasn’t freshly made daily as claimed, promptly sending me to my first ever encounter with Salmonella. Took a while to bounce back from that episode, the only lasting memory of which is that I learned the true meaning of the word delirium. I returned to Calgary, fully intending to use my two weeks of Colorado riding to put in a decent performance at the Bow 80. All was going decently well, until about the ¾ point, where my stomach decided that the pains of Salmonella weren’t really all that far behind, and this mountain bike race was getting a little long. It decided that endless digestion of bike based energy foods was a little monotonous, and more or less ceased to do so. Naturally my pace slowed down to the lower threshold, just above bonking while puttering home without really eating. Memories formed in times of distress lay themselves fairly deep, and to this day I remember clearly when I head Tim’s voice behind me, asking how I was doing. I think my response was something along the lines of “I’ve had better moments”. Misery loves company, and although I don’t think Tim was miserable at all, I think the “I’ve had better moments” description was also indicative of that point for various reasons. He said not to worry, we’re almost there and we can just ride in together. Partnership in riding is like magic. If left to my own devices I probably would have slowed, slowed, and slowed some more, with the eventuality of crawling to the finish. Having a wheel to focus on redirects mental efforts, pain becomes secondary to the task of not losing the lifeline. We didn’t chat much, but that was mainly my fault. Tim chatted to everyone around us, and I just tagged along and listened. That’s how little it can take to help out, and how much it can mean.

Encouragement feels just as good on the up days as well. Coming into the last 500 meters of TransRockies 2006, Dallas and I were hammering along a brief stretch of residential pavement at the Panorama mountain village before climbing up the bunny hill and coasting to the finish. We were cognizant of a pair of Brits who we’d been riding near for at least the last hour of the stage. Unfortunately, on a slight decline in the pavement, we started hammering and missed the subtly marked left turn up the bunny hill. It only took about 20m to notice, but as we u-turned and retraced our path, we faced straight at the Brits. We made our right hand turn up the bunny slope only 5 seconds ahead of them making the correct left hand turn on first attempt. Right away, they started jeering us, probably in good spirit. “We’re right on your tail boys, I bet your hearts are pumping now!” The bunny slope was about 100m long, grassy, and turned out to be an all out VO2 max test during the final 2 minutes of 7 days of mountain bike racing. Hearing the Brits made Dallas turn on the throttle up to 11. My cadence was probably around 100rpm, and I think I popped off 6 gear changes on that slope. Head down and heart ready to explode after 50m, I suddenly hear loud, louder, yelling words of encouragement from a voice I recognize. It’s Tim of course, and Tracy too! I don’t for the life of me remember what they were saying, but it put the searing of my lungs and legs in 2nd place, just for those few moments. At risk of pointing out the blatantly obvious, Dallas isn’t easy to keep up with on an all out finish. My only claim to fame that day was that I was near enough behind to hear him breathing, and he was working it. I actually didn’t know we were that close to the end, ski hill finishes worry me cause there’s always the threat of a little extra “bonus climb” before finishing. As it turns out, Tim and Tracy were there at just the right point to keep me one step ahead of the pain. As luck would have it, it was our best day of the 7, finishing coincidentally in 7th overall. The mile of climbing was hard, but I resolved to keep my fingers off the brakes on the way down. It’s worth pointing out that the primary reason they were there wasn’t at all to support Dallas or I. The last day of TransRockies is capped off with a huge party. Mountain bikers and a party are the magic mixture for Tim and Tracy!


Lately I’ve been road biking for the most part, or road racing anyway, so my riding overlap with Tim has been a little on the low side. Having said that, I’ve resolved to do more single speeding over time, although there’s a few shorter term goals I’d like to pick off first. In fact, Tim’s helping me look for a deal on a new single speed at the moment… hope all turns out well.

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