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COLUMN: Mario, Rossi and the road more travelled

A 20-year-old bicycle bought from a friend ignited a passion for cycling that was in the blood for Richard Dal Monte.

I blame Mario.

It is his fault, the alarm that wakes me much too early on Saturday mornings.

His fault, the (ahem) snug Lycra shorts I wear, the colourful jerseys I pull over my head.

His fault, the countless hours and kilometres I spend on two skinny wheels.

I also blame Rossi.

Let me explain: Preparing to move a few years ago, my friend Mario Bartel, a photographer and reporter at the NewsLeader papers in Burnaby and New Westminster — and a hardcore cyclist — needed to get rid of some of his stuff. So he did what anyone would (not) do: He created a website and emailed the link to friends and acquaintances, who could then shop online for used Ikea furniture and other household items.

Or, in my case, a blue, steel-framed Kona mountain bike that had carried its owner up and down trails for years but had been replaced with a newer model. With an eye to upgrading from a bike I had bought in the 1980s, I pointed and clicked to reserve that beast, an investment of a couple of hundred bucks in future fun and fitness.

When I visited Mario to pick up my purchase, he mentioned he was also selling his old road bike, which he’d been using on his training machine and which he would throw in for an extra $50.

That’s Rossi. Sleek, elegant tubular steel. Gleaming chrome forks. A hard, old leather seat. Italian.

Mario had bought it more than 20 years earlier, when he was a university student, and just as it had grabbed him from the first ride, it spoke to me now.

It spoke of packs of riders on mountain roads and city streets in my family’s native northern Italy.

It spoke of childhood freedom in East Van on my purple bike with the banana seat and sissy bar, and, later, my brother’s hand-me-down, Woodwards-bought 10-speed.

It reminded me of the time, more than two decades earlier, when I heard someone talk about riding to Whistler and I had thought, “Wouldn’t that be cool?,” never thinking I would do it (I’ve done it).

And it said one thing I immediately knew to be true: This is going to become an expensive habit.

Still, cheapskate though I am, I was sold.

And thus began the education of a roadie, another MAMIL (middle-aged man in Lycra) among the hundreds you see on local roads any given weekend.

Not that I was a two-wheeled newbie. I remember the precise moment, as a child, that I learned to ride without training wheels, pushing off my neighbour David Andrews’ front steps and cruising down the sidewalk, the secret of balance suddenly revealed, a discovery that would yield hundreds of hours of fun with friends — Albert, Dave, Gary, Gary, Robbie, Mark, Bill — on the streets of our neighbourhood.

Now, the carbon-fibre Cannondale that the Rossi begat is also the source of much recreation with riding buddies.

First, there was Max, a friend and neighbour who let me slow him down on trail rides and road outings until I was usually able to keep up. Then came Hush, Ziv, Sumo, Detonator and Andrew. Mario, too.

Each is better, stronger, faster than I. But when I struggle up a hill, which I usually do, I sometimes think of a story about my father that I learned only after Rossi entered my life, and only after my dad died: He was about 25 when he was preparing to emigrate from Italy and was working clearing brush in a town called Castello Tesino in the Dolomite Mountains. Word came to his family’s home that he was to attend a meeting about his emigration. His brother Silvano got on a bike and rode 50 km or so to alert him and to take over my dad’s job so he could take the bicicletta and ride back to attend the meeting that would propel him to Canada.

I think of this story and I imagine him pedalling a heavy, old bike. I imagine the hairy switchbacks of the Dolomiti. I imagine a determined young man in dirty work clothes and worn boots pushing to his future. I imagine this ride as but one of many challenges before him.

And I keep pedalling.

And for that, I blame Mario.

Richard Dal Monte is editor of The Tri-City News.