Vol. 77 - Hurry Home
On spending time together
In each of the last five Octobers, I’ve driven down to Travelers Rest, South Carolina for the Gran Fondo Hincapie, a mass-start bike ride (think NYC Marathon, but on road bikes) that winds through the amazing Blue Ridge Mountains between Greenville, South Carolina and Asheville, North Carolina.
Since my second fondo, I’ve been lucky enough to be a Hincapie brand ambassador, which means I get tons of amazing free bike kit from the family-owned brand, and the opportunity to ride in as many of their fondos as I can (they host 4-5 each year). The only tradeoff that the Hincapie family asks the ambassadors is to spread the word about the brand and, during Fondos, to spend a few hours during each weekend-long event volunteering to help setting up and/or breaking down. Easy.
My very first year riding the Gran Fondo Hincapie, when our son was just a few months old, I borrowed a friend’s RV, drove down alone, slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot, rode the fondo, and drove home straight after. Since, however, we’ve always made a family weekend out of it. With its kids’ museums, abundant parks, and greenways, Greenville is a great little city, especially for families.
During those weekends, while I’ve been busy volunteering at the event, doing shakeout rides with my fellow ambassadors, or riding the event itself, Emily has shouldered the load of running around town with our kids. But, as leaving Emily alone with both kids in a city neither of us are familiar with is the last thing I want to do, I often skip out on much of the social element that comes with the weekend. There are ambassador-only dinners and lunches, and a post-ride party that I’ve often had to forego in favor of being with my family.
Again, an easy tradeoff.
Though I would be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t always a little bit sad to run immediately after our rides or dinners.
However, this year, as we’ve been burning the travel candle quite hard, Emily suggested I go down alone, stay with a few friends from my local cycling club, and really take in everything the weekend has to offer; everything I’m always missing out on.
And so I did!
Or at least I planned to. That is, until our son asked if I could take him to the UNC football game that was scheduled for 6:30pm the Saturday night of Fondo weekend. A mere four hours after I was scheduled to finish the 80-mile route (which, coincidentally, is the exact amount of time it takes to drive from Travelers Rest to Chapel Hill).
Couldn’t he have just asked for a new toy or a treat? I wondered. Something I’m well-versed in saying ‘no’ to?
But he didn’t. He asked for time. And time is not something I’ll ever be able to say no to. There isn’t a brand ambassadorship in the world I would trade for time with my kids, not a weekend spent riding with some of the most luminous names in American cycling (which the Gran Fondo Hincapie usually is, and this year was no different). And so we got tickets for the game, I downgraded my ride from the 80-mile Gran route to the 50-mile Medio rout (as there was no way I’d finish the Gran and be home in time for kickoff), and told my riding mates I wouldn’t be staying through Sunday morning, like I had planned. And, as I do every year, I quickly hit the post-ride festival for a single beer before running off to my truck and heading back to my family.
I hauled ass home, trying to cut as much time off the four-hour drive as possible, and arrived just as Emily was walking out of our driveway with both kids, headed up toward Kenan Memorial Stadium, everyone decked in Tar Heel blue.
I told Em to keep walking, that I’d catch up. I ran inside and changed into my own Carolina blue gear, and chased after them, up the hill, toward Kenan. By the time I caught them, they’d linked up with some dear friends who happened to have four extra tickets in their row and two kids nearish in age to our own.
And as we sat, all eight of us in a row, my little boy—the one who asked me to take him to the game, the one who I sacrificed my own time with friends doing one of my favorite things in the world to rush home to, the one who I can’t say no to whenever he asks me to be together—made his way all the way to the other end of the row, to sit with our friends’ children.
“Don’t you want to sit with daddy?” Emily asked.
He shook his head no as he shoveled a big spoonful of Dippin’ Dots into his mouth. Then he looked at me and smiled. I shot him back a wink that promised, even seven seats away, there was nowhere else I’d rather be.
We forget how important even just the basic day-to-day time spent together is to our children. Often times it's the only thing they'll remember years from now.