Off To See The Wizard: The Road to Snelling Part 1

Meet Rob "The Wizard" Kopitzke of Body Concepts (right). Meet "RavenWing" Matt's bike (right below me).

A couple of weeks ago, when I got the news that my frame was cracked, my brand new racing world was thrown to the asphalt. Before racing I was living in black and white, life was rich and textured like “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” or “Metropolis” and at the same time constrained to a monochrome existence.  But once I pinned the numbers to my side life exploded into techno-color and Toto was chasing me down the yellow-brick road towards the Emerald City. (Does anyone remember having to twist a dial on your TV to try and tune in a channel? Color wasn’t an option, just trying to get a clear signal was a victory, and then we had color TV and going back was out of the question.) The idea that I wasn’t going to be able to race in Snelling was a sentence of returning to a pallid life of a working stiff; go to work come home, eat dinner, pay bills, help with homework, change a diaper or two and off to bed to start the next work day: I felt as if I was returning to a life half lived.

That initial wave of despair washed over me and I admit that I wallowed in it for a day or two. Then it was time to shake it off and figure something out. My wife always says that, “We’ll figure something out.” So I dusted off my old Allez and hit the trails training on it for the next week. God, it was miserable week. Cold, gray and pretty darn near colorless were those days trying to train for a race on a piece of equipment I knew just wouldn’t cut it. I shared my pain with the few intrepid souls who would hear my mewling cries and Matt –one of my Body Concepts teammates- came to my rescue offering his raven-wing carbon beauty as a loaner for me to use while I figured out how to replace my own steed.  Yes, it was black, but have you ever seen a raven’s wing in the sunlight, it shimmers with a rainbow of colors. Glenda the Good Witch had arrived in the form of a tall, lean insurance guru from Gold River.

The joy in having a carbon-embodied splash of color return to my world was tempered by the knowledge that I had less than a week to accustom myself to the new (to me) bike and it felt awkward and strange. This is where the wizard comes in. (When you are not sure how to get where you’re going, you always have to visit the wizard.) In this case, the Wizard was Rob Kopitzke from Body Concepts and the magic he wielded was in the form of a bike fitting.

I’ve never had a bike fitting before and my primitive idea of fitting a bike was making sure the seat and handle bars didn’t make me look like I was riding a low-riding bmx. What happened within the glass enclosed confines of the Body Concepts headquarters was something much more than I had ever imagined.  The effortless flow and efficient movement as Rob took me through the paces of fitting Matt’s bike to my optimal use was like watching a sorcerer weave a graceful, powerful spell. I surrendered myself to the cadence of Rob’s guidance, mystified by it all and yet feeling like something really good was taking form. If you want to truly know what happened during the fitting, you would have to ask Rob -or schedule a fitting for yourself, you will never see your bike or even yourself the same again- what I can tell you is yet another layer of color had returned to my world and Snelling was once again in my sites.

To Be Continued...

Jax trying for an internship at Body Concepts.