A local kid done good and inspiration.

Shortly after Karin and I moved from Saratoga Springs NY, to Bozeman I met Carl Strong and started working for him in his small framebuilding shop. Carl, ever the good corporate citizen, always employed young guys who were cyclists or who were interested in framebuilding to be the ‘shop boy’. The shop boy would run errands, clean chips off the mills and sweep the floors………… and frankly take good bit of good-natured abuse and teasing from the rest of us. In turn they got a few bucks and some work experience.

There was one kid who will always stick out in my mind. He had a normal sounding first name that I could never remember how to spell and a last name that was just plain hard to pronounce. He always had a deep and bright smile on his face and was able to put up with the considerable amount of crap us old guys could dish out to the shop boy. He was a road racer (unusual for a 13 year old kid) and Carl supported him with frames and a deal on parts and the kid was good — very good. One thing I recall is that he leaned against the broom more than he pushed it and I remember thinking at the time that he was just lazy but the truth of it was he was tired from balancing being a kid in school, training with large miles and being a shop boy. He was just plain tired by the time a broom got put in his hands.

This kid’s name is Tejay Van Garderen and this past Saturday he pulled on the climber’s polka dot jersey at the Tour de France. He is now 22 years old and racing for the HTC Highroad pro team in his first Tour. His success is a result of so many things of course and mostly due to his personal determination and hard work. A good deal of credit also has to be given to his dad Marcel who coached Tejay and drove countless miles to events all over this huge state while also competing himself.  And a small but important amount of the credit needs to be given to my friend Carl Strong for backing Tejay when he was just a young boy. Carl helped give a nudge at a critical time while at the same giving Tejay a bit of responsibility as shop boy. My hat is off to Carl for this unselfish act. Carl does things that inspire me.

Having a local kid pull on the climber’s jersey at the Tour de France would be a big deal in any town let alone a small town like Bozeman. It inspires like nothing else can. There are two young and very athletic boys that live across the street from us and they have taken to road riding in a big way. Seeing them leave with their dad for a road ride just warms my heart and to hear that they did 30 miles (the youngest is 9 years old) is inspiring to me…… And I can only imagine how inspiring Tejay is to them. A local kid who rode the same roads they do has gone all the way. He has shown it can be done and has paved the way. If that’s not inspirational I don’t know what is.

So join me if you would and salute Tejay, the folks that helped him get to the place he is, and to the excitement he and others give to the next wave of kids out on their roads bikes with their dads getting the miles in.

Thank you all for the inspiration.

Dave

photo from   http://velonews.competitor.com/

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One response to “A local kid done good and inspiration.”

1. Mike B says:

   July 12, 2011 at 8:06 am

   That is too cool that he got his start that way. The next crop of young American riders are going to carry the sport very far so glad a nice guy like Tejay is the standard bearer!