Richard Sachs Cycles

[e-RICHIE]

On Wednesday I did the beer run marking the beginning of my 2021 season. Since then I’ve kitted up and done two rides totaling five hours.

My observation (so far) is that despite my inflated opinion of myself, while my mind might be that of a 32 year old, my legs disagree with my mind.

If I keep riding, everything connected to this project I call my life will be 32 years old in three weeks. Except for what it says on my driver’s license. Ha.

Juan Ponce de León missed the memo. It’s not about eternal youth. Age matters little. It’s about attitude. Mine is strong and exercised daily.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

loss of control
vertical hold broken
horizontal hold broken
control of loss

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

and then there are the days when three hours seems like a lunch ride. or a run to the post office. or the hardware store. why are some rides so easy so damn efficient so free from worrying about the cog i’m in while others are all second guessing ‘n shit. a rhetorical question. was rolling it today. had good thoughts. coulda’ finished my memoir if only there was a dictation machine on my back. today was swell. ride perfect. weight perfect. dinner perfect. prefer scotch to bourbon six ways to sunday. three hours. mine. irene adler. know when you are beaten.

All This By Hand

[rccardr]

That is one salty cap.

Guess I'm not the only one with prodigious headsweat...

[e-RICHIE]

one hundred and twenty minutes was once a decent ride
now it’s a decent ride but for all the reasons that are not
the same ones as they once were

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”

~ Coco Chanel

[osbk67]

Good design is achieved not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to take away. Or something.

[e-RICHIE]

[rccardr]

…and what is it about The Dark Side that one finds so compelling?
Is it a fascination with truly new and different experiences, attitudes, mores?
Or is it a reflection of something already extant within one’s true self that recognizes a fellow traveler?
Dunno.
In my public high school everyone was striving to be cool & coolness came in multiple flavors.
On the other hand, we were all pretty ignorant teens.

[e-RICHIE]

…and what is it about The Dark Side that one finds so compelling?
Is it a fascination with truly new and different experiences, attitudes, mores?
Or is it a reflection of something already extant within one’s true self that recognizes a fellow traveler?
Dunno.
In my public high school everyone was striving to be cool & coolness came in multiple flavors.
On the other hand, we were all pretty ignorant teens.

I was fifteen. It was the late 1960s. I was an only child living in a brick row house being raised by a single mother who worked two jobs minimum while trying to get a diploma at the local state college.

We all have different parts to play, Matthew, and we should all be allowed to play them.

[rwsaunders]

We definitely date ourselves when we refer to “shop class”, right? Shop classes and drafting classes helped steer me to an engineering career, but shop class areas as we knew them in high schools are long abandoned and if a kid is going to work with his/her hands as well as their brains, they are now shipped out to a tech school and labeled as a non-academic. Shop areas are now called Fab Labs Makerspace…CAD stations, 3D printers, milling machines, drones, video conference cameras. Fabs Labs are the place where the geeks now hang…like my youngest, who graduates next year as a mechanical engineer. The space served its purpose in his case, but he wasn’t shipped off site in HS…I feel for those kids.

[e-RICHIE]

it’s one ride whether i’m on this thing or not. long or short, it’s the same ride.
and no matter how many times i lift this thing up and point it forward i never
leave and i never get there.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

brian wilson has his room.
i have my bench.
it's where i feel whole and protected.
and untouched by the noise.
everyone needs wants a safe haven.
this bench is mine.

[e-RICHIE]

pain
is not touching my bicycle for five days and then doing my three hour ride in three hours

joy
is not touching my bicycle for five days and then doing my three hour ride in three hours

All This By Hand

[Moke]

Man, you couldn't push it and sprint out a 2:59 for a three hour ride? Oh My. Next you will try and break an hour for the hour record or something.

[e-RICHIE]

Some fifty four years ago I moved to Hightstown. It wasn’t my choice. I’d have preferred to stay in Bayonne, fuck off in the Village nights and weekends, go to dances at Holy Family Academy and St. Andrews, sniff Carbona down at the piers on Newark Bay, and just have fun.

All of that worked until it didn’t. Bobbe stepped in and with all the love and maternal care she could muster, read me the riot act. I was pissing it all away. After two failing years in Bayonne High School, there were no options that didn’t include being sent away. New York Military Academy or The Peddie School.

I was a shit student at Peddie. But I learned about social work, and the importance of helping others. I spent weekends in Mantua with an org called Philadelphia Work Camps. And while at school, I took Mr. Roberts’ lead and kept a journal. And wrote. Wrote more. And never stopped.

As a sophomore I won a school-wide creative writing contest called The Dimes. I wrote a two thousand word short story titled The Grass. No one ever asked me about it, but the entire thing was a metaphor for smoking dope. I accepted the prize and the affirmation just the same. All of it felt good, the way Likes do in the Y2K era.

I applied to four colleges and got rejected at all. After that, I sent a resume to Goddard College and was accepted. My motivation was to take my scholastic level writing skills and develop them further. But the truth is I wanted to be in a cool community filled with hippies, take hallucinogens, and have relationships.

I never made it to Goddard. I ended up on another path. I’m the only student from my class who didn’t go to on to higher education. Maybe the first student in a fucking long time to never attend college. It worked out well regardless. Sometimes I live the what-if thing. And then it passes. I became a bicycle maker.

I never forgot or underplayed my time at Peddie. Each year I send a check or three. Every so often I forget. But, I always knew that in 2021, the 50th year since graduation, I wanted to do something bigger. Something grander. That phrase, “To surpass the master is to repay the debt” comes to mind. So I sent more.

[Ras72]

College and/or higher education cannot teach gratitude. It comes much earlier in life.
You are repaying those people and we can hope many more will follow - whatever that cause may be.
Congrats Richie.

[d.bancroft]

Well done Sir.

[rwsaunders]

Richard….I’ve always felt privileged and honored to be able to give back and some kid or kids, will surely benefit from your kindness for sure. What’s the significance of the “54”, or am I thinking too much about the number? Was that the year in which you were born, or have you built 5,400 frames and added a 0 for good luck? Please do tell.

[JoB]

Richard….I’ve always felt privileged and honored to be able to give back and some kid or kids, will surely benefit from your kindness for sure. What’s the significance of the “54”, or am I thinking too much about the number? Was that the year in which you were born, or have you built 5,400 frames and added a 0 for good luck? Please do tell.

"Some fifty four years ago I moved to Hightstown", methinks.