Pictured from left to right are: Norris Elswick, Geoff Inge, Jim Atherton, Kent Taylor, Carl Ulrick, Neal Gray, Jim Anderson, Bob O’Neal, Glenn Scotland, and John Sullivan.
Footnote from Jim Anderson via email on May 24th, 2020
Attached is a scan of a photo of the MAFG riders on Ride 1, Day 1, September, 1996. We had just arrived in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, WA. on the high speed ferry from Seattle. The ferry is in the back ground. Kent had invited this group because: it was the only guys he could get to come, they each had a bicycle, and did not gripe, too much. Other than the few blocks ride from the hotel to the ferry dock, we had not started what would turn out to be the first of 40 rides, with over 50 different guys . This was our first and only ride with paniers and no sag wagon. I learned two things that day: 1) don’t stand between two tall guys for the photo and 2) don’t wear pink.
This year’s ride of 2020 will be notable for the flu pandemic, but it is not the first ride to take place during notable national and world events. Including:
2001, we were in Napa Valley, CA on 9-11;
2002, the MAFGs were in Washington D.C. during the D.C. sniper attacks;
2005, we were on the Natchez Trace in southern Mississippi during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrine,
2008, MAFG were back in Washington D.C. for the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the start of the great recession, and
Rides during any number of Florida hurricanes, including: Frances, Ivan, Ophelia, Humberto, Hanna, and Irma.
Attached is a scan of a photo of the MAFG riders on Ride 1, Day 1, September, 1996. We had just arrived in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, WA. on the high speed ferry from Seattle. The ferry is in the back ground. Kent had invited this group because: it was the only guys he could get to come, they each had a bicycle, and did not gripe, too much. Other than the few blocks ride from the hotel to the ferry dock, we had not started what would turn out to be the first of 40 rides, with over 50 different guys . This was our first and only ride with paniers and no sag wagon. I learned two things that day: 1) don’t stand between two tall guys for the photo and 2) don’t wear pink.
This year’s ride of 2020 will be notable for the flu pandemic, but it is not the first ride to take place during notable national and world events. Including:
2001, we were in Napa Valley, CA on 9-11;
2002, the MAFGs were in Washington D.C. during the D.C. sniper attacks;
2005, we were on the Natchez Trace in southern Mississippi during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrine,
2008, MAFG were back in Washington D.C. for the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the start of the great recession, and
Rides during any number of Florida hurricanes, including: Frances, Ivan, Ophelia, Humberto, Hanna, and Irma.
In the Beginning there was Kent and ...
Here is the full narrative as I remember.
My first exposure to week-long rides was indeed the tour I took in 1985 in the Cotswolds, west of Oxford, England. I really liked it. Then in 1987 several of my friends and I took a four day ride from my house in Boulder over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park to Winter Park and back to Boulder. In 1988 four of us took a self-contained trip in Puget Sound. We used panniers and, with the help of ferries, toured the San Juan Islands, Vancouver Island, Whidbey Island, and the Olympic Range. In the meantime, Bob O’Neal and I took a couple of BRAG rides.
In 1996, I cobbled together ten guys to ride the Puget Sound trip again, with a different itinerary but still in Puget Sound. The one common thread for the group was that they were all people I knew and liked.
The participants:
Jim Anderson
Bob O’Neal
Geoff Inge – a Boulder friend and fellow employee at KTM; still an MAFG but scheduling has made it tough for him to participate all the time.
John Sullivan – a Boulder lawyer: he also has trouble with consistency but still participates when he can.
Norris Elswick
Neal Gray – retired Delta pilot from Atlanta
Glenn Scotland – a New Jersey lawyer with whom I had been involved on energy projects.
Jim Atherton – a Boulder IT guy who worked with my wife at the DA’s office.
Carl Ulrich – a Washington lawyer with whom I had been involved on energy projects (now deceased)
and myself, Kent Taylor.
Prior to the trip I wanted to provide the participants with something to commemorate the trip. So I bought the closest thing I could find to biking caps and had them embroidered with the initials MAFGPSBT. See the attachment. Hence the name.
Norris and I were recently reminiscing about that first trip and he said, “ I showed up with a tee shirt, Bermuda shorts, tennis shoes, and a pack of Winstons.” Now, I ask you, what is better than that?
As I have told Mike and John, it really tickles me that the group will probably continue into the future after us old guys are drooling into a cup. The particular form of biking subculture the MAFG’s occupy is unique and I really love it.
Respectively submitted by Kent Taylor
My first exposure to week-long rides was indeed the tour I took in 1985 in the Cotswolds, west of Oxford, England. I really liked it. Then in 1987 several of my friends and I took a four day ride from my house in Boulder over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park to Winter Park and back to Boulder. In 1988 four of us took a self-contained trip in Puget Sound. We used panniers and, with the help of ferries, toured the San Juan Islands, Vancouver Island, Whidbey Island, and the Olympic Range. In the meantime, Bob O’Neal and I took a couple of BRAG rides.
In 1996, I cobbled together ten guys to ride the Puget Sound trip again, with a different itinerary but still in Puget Sound. The one common thread for the group was that they were all people I knew and liked.
The participants:
Jim Anderson
Bob O’Neal
Geoff Inge – a Boulder friend and fellow employee at KTM; still an MAFG but scheduling has made it tough for him to participate all the time.
John Sullivan – a Boulder lawyer: he also has trouble with consistency but still participates when he can.
Norris Elswick
Neal Gray – retired Delta pilot from Atlanta
Glenn Scotland – a New Jersey lawyer with whom I had been involved on energy projects.
Jim Atherton – a Boulder IT guy who worked with my wife at the DA’s office.
Carl Ulrich – a Washington lawyer with whom I had been involved on energy projects (now deceased)
and myself, Kent Taylor.
Prior to the trip I wanted to provide the participants with something to commemorate the trip. So I bought the closest thing I could find to biking caps and had them embroidered with the initials MAFGPSBT. See the attachment. Hence the name.
Norris and I were recently reminiscing about that first trip and he said, “ I showed up with a tee shirt, Bermuda shorts, tennis shoes, and a pack of Winstons.” Now, I ask you, what is better than that?
As I have told Mike and John, it really tickles me that the group will probably continue into the future after us old guys are drooling into a cup. The particular form of biking subculture the MAFG’s occupy is unique and I really love it.
Respectively submitted by Kent Taylor
See you down the road!
