Headline Link: Nineteen people survive the Pittsfield Death Race
I spent the last five months living out a personal dream. Before I graduated in January, I secured a sponsorship from Long Trail Brewery in Vermont for the bicycle racing tour I mentioned in the last post. Long Trail agreed to pay for travel, lodging, food, race entry fees, bike parts, and some pocket money during my adventure. They also gave me some kegs to throw a party after a good result in the Tour de Gila in New Mexico.
The sponsorship became a reality when I approached the brewery’s owner in a bar one night. Some friends and I had wandered into Two Brothers Tavern in Middlebury, VT, and a friendly guy at the bar suddenly offered to buy everyone’s beer as long as it was Otter Creek or Long Trail. Turns out this man was Dan Fulham, a private equity guy who owned Long Trail and had just bought Otter Creek. He was promoting his beer in the local tavern.
After a few drinks, I proposed my idea to Dan. I started by telling him what I had already organized, “I’ve got a blog, an agreement with the Lance Armstrong Foundation to raise money for their cancer research and patient support, a direct deposit fundraising system for donations, twitter, a facebook event, an email list, and a full three months of racing planned all over the country.” Then I took a big sip of my Copper Ale and, with fingers crossed, said, “all I need now is a financial sponsor – I’m hoping to wear the jersey of a brand that I really believe in. I’d love to ride for LT if you’d help finance my project. I think I can really spread the word about your product out west, and you’d be helping me raise money to fight cancer.”
Dan loved the idea (or had drank enough not to care about a few thousand dollars), and agreed to pay for everything. It was a real “name your price” situation, and he told me to dismiss all the other sponsors I had approached. We signed our contract on the back of a bar tab, exchanged handshakes and contact info, and talked for about an hour before heading our separate directions. Dan came through on every promise, and I got to race in California, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Vermont.
I got a podium finish in the Sea Otter Classic, a handful of top ten finishes in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, and I placed fourth in the Death Race in Vermont. You can read about all the racing in more depth by visiting my other blog: www.deathraceforlife.blogspot.com. More important than the racing, I delivered thousands of dollars to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which I hope will make a difference for their important mission. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTED ME AND DONATED!
Now I'm hanging up the bike to begin the next chapter. On July 16th I fly to Boston to say goodbye to some college friends in Nantucket before I fly to Reykjavik, Iceland on the 20th to begin my Watson Fellowship. I am officially banished from the United States for one year beginning on the 20th.
Over the next twelve months, I expect to find myself in or around powerplants, oil rigs, financiers offices, wind testing sites, geology research camps, solar cell laboratories, coal mines, steel mills, factories, electric utilities, district heating systems, hydrothermal springs, and lots of places I can't imagine yet. My little mission is to learn about energy businesses and technologies, mostly geothermal energy, but I'll work with wind and solar power companies too. I'll see coal, oil, and gas along the way also. The idea is to prepare myself to make a real and positive impact on the energy systems we depend on. I know this sounds impossibly vague and directionless, but I promise I have some pretty specific plans and goals - the details will come in a later post. For now, suffice it to say that I will be spending a year outside the US studying and working with energy businesses (mostly renewables) in five or six countries.
(To my family and friends) My folks are throwing me a little going away party on Thursday, and I'd love to see anyone in Denver one last time before I head out. You all probably don't remember this, but we had a similar goodbye on the night before I left for my big west coast bike trip after graduating from high school. I thought about everyone that came to say goodbye very often, especially when I was freezing, terrified, hungry, or otherwise needing empowering memories. Well, that only lasted one month, and everyone I met along the way spoke English. What I'm about to do will last a year, and the places I'm going are pretty
intimidating to be honest. I don't speak many of the languages, nor do I understand the cultures I'll be living in. I'm confident in the plans I've laid over the last six months, still, a fond farewell could prove indispensable if I find myself choking down another dog-kebob in Beijing or testing geothermal gradients in "encephalitis avenue" in Indonesia.
If you want to say goodbye, or are just curious about what I'll be doing, where I'll be, or what I hope to accomplish, then please stop in for a moment on Thursday. You can have dinner, snacks, and/or drinks starting around 7:00 - should be informal with lots of good food and libations. Please let me know whether or not you can make it so we can plan accordingly.
I am retiring my Death Race blog, and I’ll be using this one to keep a log of my experiences on the Watson Fellowship. Please check back often to read about my adventures.
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