Honorarium for Scottie

Scottie Honorarium 10/27/07

Album | Slideshow

I started road cycling as a serious hobby in 1998. I'd been a pretty serious mountain biker throughout the 90s, but I kept getting injured. In the summer of 1998 I moved to an apartment in downtown Seattle. That made mountain biking less accessible as well as hazardous. So I bought a road bike. I think I rode my mountain bike about twice after that. I immediately liked the speed and smoothness and the more sustained workout one gets from road biking.

I rode mostly solo for several years. In 2001 or so I decided to try some group rides and went on a few with the Cascade Bicycle Club. I love the club and am a member, but I found their organized rides annoying - the rides I went on stopped way too often to regroup - negating the aforementioned sustained workout benefit. But on one aborted ride I met Greg Scott and we made up our own ride. We became instant riding buddies and rode together almost every weekend and some weeknights for a couple of years.

After a while, Greg asked if I wanted to try a Saturday ride he knew about that left from the Eastgate area of Bellevue. We joined in that day and I've been riding with the Saturday group semi-regularly ever since.

The Saturday ride is organized by a fine gentleman named Scott Sensenbrenner. Scott sends out an email in the middle of every week reminding people of the ride and suggesting the start time (earlier in summer, later in winter). The ride goes almost every Saturday year round. The only reason it's usually canceled in advance is a forecast for snow or ice. Scott's been doing this for something like 20 years.

Scott's the friendliest guy you could hope to meet. We often pick up strangers on the ride. Scott gets their email and they become a permanent part of the list. Everybody feels welcome. The group has a wide range of riders, from those who are new to cycling to current and former racers. Every year we talk about getting club jerseys. But the group is so informal that we can't even agree on a name, much less a jersey design.

I've made many good cycling friends from the Saturday ride. It's with people from this ride that I ride STP and the MS Bike Tour and all the other local annual rides. Many of my best days on the bike have been with this group. In the summer when everybody's in their best shape we have some fantastic paceline riding.

A few weeks ago, fellow member Dutch sent out an email organizing a collection. He wanted to give Scott a token of our appreciation for making this ride happen every week for so long, and being responsible for so much enjoyment by so many people. Dutch got a pretty good response. When he went to buy the gift certificate at VeloceVelo in Issaquah, they knew Scott and kicked in some more. Then Dutch waited for a week when he knew turnout would be high. This week he announced that today was the day.

Indeed about 20-25 people showed up on a cold, foggy morning to witness the gifting and show their appreciation to Scott. The "ceremony" such as it was contained the usual amount of sarcasm and ribbing. But it was clear that we all feel gratitude toward Scott.

Then we headed off for a 40 mile ride to Issaquah, Maple Valley and Renton. Fortunately it warmed up a bit after the first 10 miles or so and our fingers came back to life.

Thanks, Scott! I know you don't think you do much, but your welcoming spirit and friendliness are the glue that holds this whole thing together.