In the fall of 1973, this flyer appeared around the campus of SUNY Plattsburgh. Gary Toth had decided to hold a bicycle race and he knew that a time trial was the easiest and safest event for beginners. The course was the loop road around Cumberland Head, and riders were to cover two laps of the 10 km loop. Gary originally planned to run both individual riders and two-person teams, but race day was horribly windy so, with inexperienced cyclists, he scrapped the team event.

I had planned to team up with Fred Oberkircher, an architect teaching in the Home Economics Dept. at the College. It was fortunate for me that we rode as individuals because Fred experienced a problem out on the course and could not finish the race. I would have been out too if we had ridden as a team.

We started off at intervals and rode solo -- no drafting -- as time trial rules require. The wind was blowing up the lake so hard that as I rounded a curve near the old Bayview Dairy, a blast of air nearly stopped me in my tracks!

Here is the finish list, taken from a hand-written sheet showing only last names. My old handwriting was hard to read so some of the names may be mis-spelled.

Dave Godette      36:17
Don Evans         39:31
--- Cowper        40:35
Gary Toth         41:02
Don West          41:10
Dan Kinne         43:57
--- Summer        44:31
--- Longshore     47:26
--- Birnie        48:16

 DNF Fred Oberkircher

This was the first time that I met Don Evans, who had been a member of the Southern Tier Bicycle Club in Binghamton where he grew up. Don tried hard to duplicate his experience in the Champlain Valley with the short-lived Northern Tier Bicycle Club. Dan Kinne (pron. "Kinney") was another rider who stayed with the activity for several years. Dan was the son of local restaurateur, Lionel Kinne of Chez Lionel, who had grown up in Harrogate, England, and Dan liked nice equipment.

The local bike shop at that time was North End Repair, located on Boynton Ave. across from the paper mill, where you could buy a Schwinn or a Raleigh, or a Harley-Davidson, or you could get your lawn mower fixed. For several months North End Repair had a Campagnolo-equipped Raleigh International bicycle sitting on a rack at a bargain price.

The shop owner lived at the bottom of Rand Hill Rd, not far from the Rabideau home where Clyde Rabideau and his younger brother Mitchell grew up. The gossip was that the Raleigh International had been ordered for Mitch, who decided not to buy it. I recognized the bargain on a fine bike but the frame was not my size.

Dan Kinne was smarter, more worldly than I. He bought the Raleigh, stripped it of its Campagnolo components which he put on his own bike, a Fuji, I think, and then resold the Raleigh frame. The deal made the Campy gruppo a bargain. A couple of years later, Kinne upgraded again, ordering an English MKM, built in his father's home town of Harrogate, with its hand-brazed frame of Reynolds 531 steel, the industry standard at the time. I believe that Ed Gardner ordered the MKM through his shop, Wooden Ski and Wheel, and while he was at it, he ordered a few more MKM frames.

In 1981, I bought one of those other bikes after it had knocked around the Valley for several years, passing from owner to owner. It was my second adult bike and my first quality machine. My MKM was equipped with a strange mixture of components, from a mid-quality crankset to tubular tires on wheels thoughtfully built on Bulls-Eye hubs, with heavier spokes on the drive side of the rear wheel. I immediately upgraded to a Campy crankset and a Brooks Pro leather seat. I still have that bike, but when I take it out, it seems a bit cramped, perhap just because handlebars have gotten wider in three decades.    Don West, December 2008