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I was in Durango Colorado this past weekend with a group of friends from
Arizona for a few splendid days of mountain biking. It was a Friday night, our ride was over, and Kent wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. He wanted to head into town and witness the rowdy “Harley Davidson types” that gather every year in Durango on this Labor Day weekend. We hoped to watch people and maybe
witness a few fights.
As we walked down Main Street, we felt uncomfortably out of place, and
looked for a place to sit, away from the sea of black leather and ponytails.
Kent was thirsty, so he decided to step into a small, out of the way,
Magazine shop to get a Diet Coke. I sat down at a table outside on the
patio and waited.
A few moments later, Kent yanked me from my chair.
“Dude, Bob Roll’s in there!” Kent’s face was lit up like a little kid on
Christmas morning. I followed Kent back into the small store. In the back
room of the store, there stood Bobke, yapping with what looked to be the
only customer in the entire store. Bob was putting the finishing touches on
a small, strawberry ice-cream cone. Bob was animated in his conversation.
His arms and hands waved wildly, and every now and then, a tiny piece of
spittle would fly from his lips as he excitedly spoke of Lance and Tyler and
the whole Tour experience.
Kent and I just stood there, dazed. We stared at the magazines. They could
have been cooking magazines for all we knew. We stood there and listened to
every word that came out of Bob’s mouth. We were too awestruck to join in
on the conversation. Celebrities like Bob are most likely approached a
gazillion times a day. We wanted to respect his personal life and not
bother him. So we turned, and quietly left the shop.
Once outside, Kent and I stood there and stared at each other. “Can you
believe that? We stood next to Bob Roll!” I said. We quickly realized that nobody back at camp was going to believe us. We somehow needed to get proof. We needed a picture of us with Bob. We walked back into the store and bought a disposable camera. Timidly, we approached Bob again. I held out the camera, gesturing much like the Crocodile Hunter would, offering a piece of meat to a hungry croc.
“Bob, uh…, would you mind if we had our picture taken with you?” I asked.
Before I could finish, Bob dropped his conversation with that other guy like
a hot potato. He snatched the camera from my hand and tossed it to the dude
he had been talking to, only moments before. Bob stood in the middle as he
positioned Kent and me on each side of him. He draped his arm around each
of our shoulders.
The camera guy snapped one, then two, then three photos. Bob asked us if we
both watched this year’s Tour. We were so awestruck, that we couldn’t fully
explain that our July was put on hold for the Tour. We were too awestruck
to tell him we had all of his commercials memorized; that we had read his
book “Bobke”. That we were standing there, many years ago, at the Cactus
Cup at Pinnacle Peak in Scottsdale, as they pulled Cactus needles from his
mangled body after a wild crash. We didn’t mention that we didn’t start a
day during the Tour, without first checking the OLN site to see what Bob had
to say about the previous stage. We never mentioned that we almost voted
for Bob Dole, because his name sounded a lot like “Bob Roll”.
Instead, we mumbled a few sentences about the upcoming Vuelta. Conscience
about not wanting to interrupt his personal life, we thanked him for the
photo and turned to leave. Bob pulled us back into the conversation once
more, as he mentioned that he couldn’t wait to work with those British chaps
again. We talked for a few more minutes about Phil and Paul, and turned to
leave once more. Bob called back to us, following us out from the back
room, and into the front of the store. “Thanks, guys. You all take care now.
That ol’ Vuelta will be here before you know it. Just hang on.”
Suddenly, Kent and I started to feel a bit uncomfortable. Didn’t Bob know
that we had things to do? Didn’t Bob realize that Kent and I each had a
personal life? Why, just outside, there was a whole world of crazy biker
people. What if each one of them wanted to stop and talk to us as long as
the “Bobke” did?
We stepped out into the fresh Colorado air, grinning like two boys that had
just found a bunch of change in the coin return of a pop machine. I held
the camera high in the air with one hand, and high-fived Kent with the
other. We had just shared a personal moment with one of the bicycling’s
greats.
The neat thing about it all is; Bob Roll doesn’t know that he’s Bob Roll.
He’s just an avid biker that loves to bike, and loves to talk about biking
to anyone that will listen. Bob, you are a perfect ambassador of our great
sport. Keep up the good work, and thanks again for the picture. There was a
moment, there in back room of a small Magazine shop, where you could have
made both Kent and I feel like two pieces of garbage. Instead, I now have
this fond memory of talking with one of the world’s most colorful bikers;
and Kent has this neat strawberry ice-cream drip on the right shoulder of
his jacket, that he will never wash away…
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