IN THE BEGINNING

I started riding mountain bikes in 1983, not just out of necessity, but also because of interest. I was living in Costa Mesa, but got a job washing dishes at a small hospital in Santa Ana (about 10 miles apart). I read an article in Outdoor Magazine about the Stumpjumper All Terrain Bike (ATB), and I thought, "A bike that can jump logs! How cool is that." I went in to South Coast Schwinn, and looked at the Stumpjumper - but ended up with a 1983 Diamondback Ridge Runner. It was a good bike though, and a good one to learn on. It also got me back and forth to work and college. In 1984, I entered my first bike race - the Gant Challenge near L.A., which I was winning the first two of three laps till I crashed and lost time to finish 10th.

I got my second mountain bike, a 1985 Schwinn Cimarron (also purchased at South Coast Schwinn). I used the bike to ride up the Santa Ana bike trail (20 km each way) to work, and to college. I had a lot of fun on my Cimarron, and we when on weekends would ride down to the beach. Still, I was getting to be a much better rider, and started to find the limits of the bike and yearned for better. That year, I got my first road bike, and nice black Bianchi. I would take it out once a week to build my fitness.

After a year of hard riding and working, I bought my third mountain bike, a Fat Chance Wicked with XT parts. I read a lot of positive reviews of the bike, and I thought the interview with Chris Chance was great. After that, my dream was to own a hand-made bike from Chris. The Wicked was such an extraordinary bike for it’s time, and with that bike I finally had a real mountain bike.

IN THE SHOP

In 1987, I worked for 6 months South Coast Schwinn as a part time weekend salesperson - securing the shop record of most bikes sold in a single day (15). I loved working at South Coast, even though I was VP of Sales and Marketing for the largest Contract Electronics Manufacture in Southern California - I had a blast working part-time on the weekends at the shop. I learned even more about bikes, and all the guys at the shop were really cool. We would have all kinds of fun and games, and the manager Ken was the best. We had on game called "Dark Helmet", which was named after one of the characters in the great Mel Brooks Star Wars spoof "Spaceballs". The rider would put on this big black BMX full face helmet, and ride the smallest little kids tri-cycle that we had. The game was to see if the rider could ride the entire "course", which weaved it’s way through the rows of new bike on the floor, without knocking over any bikes. The rest of us would stand around the shop, each with 6 tennis balls, which we threw in an effort to get the rider to hit the bikes. The person who knocked over the most bikes, had to do all the touch-up painting on the knicked bikes. Fun.

It was at this time, that I got my next road bike - The Orange Monster. I sold a sweet IronMan Master (made by Centurion) to this guy. A week later he came back and showed me the bike - the fork was bent. I asked what happened, and he said that he forgot to take it off his roof rack before driving in to the garage. He then told me that her really wanted the IronMan Pro (better components), so now he had an excuse that his wife would accept. After I sold him the Pro, I asked him what he wanted to do with the master, he said he didn’t know, but with a bent fork it was junk. I said, "Well, I will give you $25 for this junk." It was a joke, but he said OK. So, I got a new IronMan Master for $25. I knew we had a fork for it for $50, and then I had a friend paint it Florescent Orange (using CalTrans safety paint - very bright) and the Orange Monster was born! It was also the perfect size for me.

MOVIN’ AND GROOVIN’

In 1991, my ex-wife and I went to Hungary (it is in Europe - and was here native land) for a 1-year holiday, but after 3 I got bored. After the government allowed foreigners to own a business, I contacted a friend at Trek Bicycles, and became the Hungarian distributor of Trek Bicycles. This gave me a deep experience as a distributor of cycling products, and an understanding of the business challenges facing a distributor. In 1993, I started a MTB magazine, since at the time there was only a road bike magazine and I needed a media to market Trek bicycles. The magazine quickly became one of the largest specialty magazines in Hungary. As part of the work needed to secure advertising, we were helping international companies find distributors in Hungary, and as a result we were a catalyst for the strong growth that the market experienced at that time. I was also Downhill racing at the time, entering 5 World Cup races from 1992 to 1996. By 1994, the magazine was doing very well, and so I sold the Trek distributorship to eliminate any conflict of interest issues. During this time, I rode pretty much every bike made (and was distributed in Hungary) from 1993 to 1999. It was a great experience testing all those bikes and parts, and during this time I acquired and sold several bikes.

ORGANIZATION

At this point, we were following the UCI/Grundig MTB World Cup through Europe, and I got to know the UCI MTB co-coordinator Chris Payne, and worked with the Hungarian Cycling Federation to bid for a World Cup event for Hungary. In 1995, we received a XC event for Budapest, and I was the organizer. This meant designing the course and setting-up the venue to meet the UCI World Cup requirements. This allowed me to get to get to know all the international cycling media, top racers, teams, managers and the complete UCI organization. I was the only World Cup organizer to race in a World Cup, and organize a World Cup event in the same year. In 1996, Hungary did not receive a World Cup event, but I went to the UCI Commissaries school at the Mt. Snow World Cup, and became a UCI MTB Commissaries, Grade A.

FULL PLATE

In 1997 and 1998 we received XC World Cup events for Budapest, and again I was the organizer for both events. I was also one of the UCI Commissaries for the DH World Cup event in Sierra Nevada, Spain in 1997. Of course, doing all that and running a monthly magazine was not easy, but it was good project management training. We averaged going to 2-4 World Cup events a year, as well four tradeshows a year in order to promote the magazine and World Cup events, secure advertising and test parts from the cycling companies. During this time, I did most of the photography for the magazine, and was writing about 20,000 words a months for articles. I could say that I did all this myself, but it would not be the truth - I could not have done the magazine and World Cup races without the help of my ex-wife - she made a significant contribution to the magazine and the organization of the World Cups in Hungary. Also, I want to say that B.K. Csok (ex-girlfriend), made a significant contribution to keeping the magazine (and myself) alive during its darkest time - and BikeMag would not exist (even today) without her help and care.

DOWNHILL

In 1999, I worked with the Slovenian Cycling Federation, and bid for a DH World Cup event in Maribor. We got the race (I became the only World Cup organizer to organize events in two different countries), and I handled the course design and event structure, with my partner Andrej handling local logistics. The event was a great success, and we won the UCI Rainbow award for best DH World Cup event in 1999. The 1999 Maribor World Cup was a major turning point in my life, and although it was one of the finest moments and greatest successes that I have had, right after it was a period of great darkness for me. It was at this point that I knew I had to change my life. By the end of the year, I had saved the magazine, and then sold it, and moved back to the USA. Since that time, Maribor has hosted the World Cup in 2000, 2001 and again for 2002.

BACK IN THE USA