A Wedding, A Birthday, Four Rides & 2600 Miles

March 7, 2019

When our really good friends, Syd and Macky Franklin, invited us to their wedding in New Mexico, we figured, “Might as well make it a bike trip!” They were, understandably, very busy before the big day, but agreed to show us some trails a couple days after. We settled on an itinerary that included Sedona on our way out, a night in Flagstaff with friends, a place called Ghost Ranch for the Wedding, Las Cruces to see my brother for his birthday, and two days of riding in Santa Fe with Syd, Macky and my good buddy Xavier. Here’s a little photo essay of the trip.

The Route. Lots of driving. Over 2600 miles!

Working on my bike about 2mins into the ride in Sedona. Ride #1.

The wedding was in place called Ghost Ranch. Beautiful.

Macky and Me. Sounds like the name of a children’s book.

Isn’t she gorgeous? Such good beer. Oh ya Christina too!

Someone used to sit here and soak in the view

Little McGhee loves his girlie drinks. Happy Birthday Lil Bro!

Aftermath of Christina’s awkward dismount. Wish we had it on film.

Friends who wheelie together, stay together.

Meow Wolf art exhibit in Santa Fe is weird, interactive and crazy cool. Dod i mention its weird?

Road Trail 18 in Taos with Syd and Macky. There was a little bit of mud. Ride #4.

Watch the latest UNP video about riding Glorieta with Syd and Macky

Running in My Heart

February 13, 2019

How many people can say “I have found my life’s purpose”? It took me 42 years, but here i am, finally understanding what my contribution to this world is. Did it happen by accident? Well, it happened because of an accident. I was paralyzed in a motorcycle wreck in 2001. The desire to get out on the trail led me to get my bike. My bike is how i get out on the trail. I have run into trouble on the trail. Now i am mapping trails for adaptive riders. Boom! There it is.

First year playing football at 12 years old. (I can’t believe i shared this!)

In recent years, I have struggled to get up in the morning, feeling semi-purposeless with little direction. Now, i find myself at dinner, thinking about getting back to work early the next day…one trail at a time.

Incorporating my personality into it all has been an interesting part. You see, i sort of missed my calling as a thespian. My life took a turn when i decided to play football instead of following my heart, which pulled me towards running and theatre. I did not have the parenting that equipped me with the tools to find the true man within. It was a free-for-all, directionless survival. For most young people, the most powerful influence is whatever breeds expectance, being cool, having friends, people liking you. There are a select few who seem to have a preprogrammed nature that compels them to rise above all that nonsense, but I was not one of those. Never have been. Whatever i do, i need to work very hard for and, without direction as a young man, i just followed the current.

As i turned the corner on the road to manhood, in my middle school years, i started fighting at school and with my younger brother. Early in life, my father had shown me that anger and violence were the way to solve problems and i followed suit. When football came into my life, that all ended abruptly. I gave it my heart, winning Most Dedicated every season. I took pride in my role as a special teams head hunter and third down specialist. My one claim to fame occurred when Michael Pittman, our star running back who ended up playing the game of his life in Super Bowl XXXVII, came up to me after practice one day and said, “I’m kinda afraid of you, McGhee.”

Football was good for me. It gave me an outlet for my aggression, but i was injured a lot and i rode the bench my junior and senior years on varsity, despite having the most sacks on the team (I had to throw that in there). My body was just not built for it, a lanky stride and slow feet obvious evidence that my aspirations of playing college football were far fetched and high school was the end of the road for this sport in my life.

I could run though and i really enjoyed drama class. If only i had the parental guidance to help me see, understand and accept these things. What would my life look like if i had chosen to run on the cross country team and had joined the drama club?

Fast forward two and a half decades and i am making videos for adaptive mountain bikers. If you have watched any of these, you will see that I narrate some of the story from a studio in my garage, but recently, I have been watching other mountain biker YouTube channels in an effort to learn how to do things the best i can. I started trying to do the same as them, talking to the camera on rides, narrating my experience as I go, eliminating the need for a post narration element. Then, i caught myself, the inner thespian clawing his fabulous way out of a pickle. “Not this time!” he claimed. I am different than they are. My videos are more than just mountain biking and they totally have an acting element to them. I get to be myself, goofy in front of the camera and have fun with it.

The latest video

I have found a way to be fully myself with a clear direction and this gets me up in the morning with excitement, something my life has been missing for a while. Also, the tech nerd in me gets to learn about video editing and gadgets and cool computer stuff. And of course, the inner runner gets to get out on the trail as part of all this too. Not literally running, but I am running in my heart, the way i can.

Feeding the Beasts

November 29, 2018

The 13th Weekly Ride episode tells the story of the last ride on my green bike and it made me think how far my bikes have come. It inspired me to write about the different bikes i have had over the years and the progression of each one…

In 2004, I moved to Mammoth to put my full energy into skiing. I thought this the best thing because, at the time, skiing was the only action sport i thought i could perform completely solo. There was always road biking, but that was just a default when i needed exercise. It was never something i enjoyed as much as getting out in nature.

In moving to the mountains, I relished in surviving through the elements. I celebrated things like shoveling snow, de-icing my truck, building fires and cold walks with my dog. These types of things sure made the coffee and scotch taste better! What i did not anticipate is what happened in the summer…the mountain bike culture. People in the mountains ride mountain bikes when there is no snow to ski.

Who am i? Rigid bike with full face helmet? Bike #1

This is where mountain biking began for me. Now, its important to remember that i do not consider myself a mountain biker. I am a trail runner and this bike is how i get out on the trail, BUT if i am going to do it, might as well REALLY do it. Hence, the full face, pads and downhill riding. So, I’m a trail runner and equally a downhill rider, disciplines sitting on opposite ends of the spectrum. On one side is the glutton for punishment. How much can i make myself hurt? At the other end is the adrenaline junkie who feels a huge sense of accomplishment when he scares the shit out of himself and survives.

The desire for my first bike was born purely out a desire to walk my dog on the trail and get my surfboard across the sand…and that’s entirely what is was meant for. Now, a volunteer ski instructor and ski shop employee does not really make the type of cash to afford a $6000 bike, but with the help of the Challenged Athletes Foundation and some good friends, i was able to get this first bike and get out on the trail!

This thing had crazy granny gears and could climb anything. It was fully rigid though, no suspension, and I quickly realized that it was not meant for riding the bike park at Mammoth, my back getting jarred with every rock drop. In all fairness, at that time, i was in my twenties and the adrenaline junkie side overrode the desire to work my heart and lungs.

The life of my first bike was short lived and i put her on the market after only a few months, knowing that i needed something different.

Enter my second bike, a full suspension beast of a downhill land spider. It took some serious smooth talking, all the cash from the sale of my first bike and then some, plus all the lint in my pockets and i drove home, proudly, with the bike hanging off the back of my car.

This bike took me to new heights. Literally, i launched that thing. I rode the bike park every day and surprised myself what i could take that thing through. Till this day, i will never ride as extreme or as hard as i did in those days, with that bike. She was broken a lot though and i spent months riding my rode bike while she sat in machine shops. My friends also had to push me around. She had no drivetrain, gravity driven only, and the Glutton for Punishment, the desire to simply trail run, came creeping back.

Glutton for Punishment on Bike #3 in Moab

One random day, I was researching off-road wheelchairs and came across something that looked similar to my first bike, with a drivetrain, but also with full suspension, like my downhill bike. You mean i could have both? I could satisfy the trail runner and the downhill rider? One bike for all? Within a couple weeks I sold my downhill bike and wrote a check, emptying my bank account. This third bike was twice the price and i lived incredibly simply in order to afford it.

Bike #3 was yellow before it was white. Adrenaline junkie smashing Kamikaze here.

The eight week wait killed me, but when she finally arrived I quickly put her together and the adventures began. I cranked through ligament straining climbs. Then, turned around and jumped off rocks, all in the same day, on the same bike. I spent sleepless nights, geeking out on trails on Google Maps and getting friends to take me on cool rides. I went to places like Moab, Colorado and Boulder City, NV and rode all over the Mammoth area. I got so much attention with this bike that the manufacturer asked me to help sell them.

Then, the next generation came out and i had to have it. Green bike enters scene. It was stronger, lighter, had more clearance…AND…the big difference…a power assist. Complete and absolute game changer. Rides with my previous bike were five to six miles and, in all honesty, i still had to get a lot of help. If i was on climb, whoever was riding with me might as well have been on foot. I was left in the dust. Now that was all different.

Fundraiser at Revolution Bike Shop. Thanks guys!

I can’t go on without giving thanks to Revolution Bike Shop, 2XU, my loving community of friends and everyone (even strangers) who donated to the Gofundme page for this bike. After selling the previous bike, i fell ill with an unexplained bone infection and had to have my lower spine replaced, the infection had eaten it away. When i was finally admitted, i was down to 119lbs and drove myself to the emergency room one night with a fever of 107. It was bad and i am lucky to be alive, but the hospital bills were payed with all the money i had, including what i had set aside for my next bike.

With Bike #4, my rides went from five or six miles to twelve, fifteen and further. My longest ride right now is 24.8 miles! Thanks to Spinergy, the bike could accommodate fat AND downhill wheels. Talk about one bike for all! Now i could “trail run”, ride the bike park AND ride out on the snow with the fat wheels. With the power assist, i was no longer left in the dust and felt more like a part of the pack rather than a burden on the pace.

Just part of the pack! Bike #4 in DH mode

I could navigate more terrain with the power to crawl up rock gardens and the ability to still propel myself while having both hands on the handlebar (off the hand crank). More of the world became open to me. The learning curve has been to still get “the pump” and find a way to satisfy the glutton for punishment by getting my heart rate as high. There is a fine balance of how much to let the motor help and i have discovered that cranking harder in a lower gear enables me to do more of the work. I am getting significantly into the red zone for duration on all my rides now and it feels good!

The down side: In order to have the ability to switch between fat and downhill wheel sets, the bike needs an external drive train. Without the luxury of being able to step off the bike and walk it over obstacles, if i find myself in too big of a gear with the external drivetrain, then i am stuck. There is a solution to this problem: The Rohloff Speed Hub. This is a German engineered internally geared hub (14 gears!), which goes into whatever gear you switch it into without moving. Did you hear that? WITHOUT MOVING! That is huge for an adaptive rider. This means that if i get stuck in too big of a gear, all i need to do is drop the gears all the way down and i am free to crawl.

Newest bike enters scene.

Meet LL Cool Grey

Without the external drivetrain, I have lost the ability to switch wheel sets, but have gained an entirely new freedom with the Rohloff. it switched gears like butter! I have learned so much over the years of riding these bikes that have made many other upgrades to the parts as well. In my opinion, because of those upgrades, this is the best of these bikes in all existence and it is so exciting to be on the front lines of discovery. The evolution, itself, has been a fun ride!

It is also exciting to be using this bike for others. My days of self promotion and striving to be a professional athlete are over. Its not about me anymore. Its about making the bikes better. Its about helping people get these bikes AND teaching them how to take care of it, all while providing the information they need to ride safely.

Enter The UNPavement (www.theunpavement.com). It is my goal to set a platform in place that stays in motion long after I’m gone.

I’m excited for the next generation of these bikes and for a world that possesses trail information for them. In the meantime, i’m gonna keep feeding the beasts…both of them. Thanks for joining me on this ride. Its been fun!

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A Wedding, A Birthday, Four Rides & 2600 Miles

Running in My Heart

Feeding the Beasts