Symbiotic Strategy

Braving cold and rain, Team Zane.

Matrim lapping the field.

Our little cycling team nicknamed "Team Zane,

is forming up at the same moment world cycling communities are enjoying a radical shift toward greater  popularity. 

All over Portland, Coach Sam Balto's BIKE BUS is transforming happy youth into vigorous morning people. Attracting crowds at early morning bike commutes to school, his model is feeding the soul of modern civilization.

Our coaches, see growth and
are quantifying it longitudinally.

Around the world now, parents on cargo bikes, neighbors blocking traffic, and fired up students sing songs and fly down the road. Everywhere they go, they are fostering a leviathan of hope in their community, parading by their fans every week.

One pedal stroke at a time, students are linking civic duty, academic rigor, parental/teacher/community relations, personal fitness, and more, by simply participating in their school's BIKE BUS.

Meanwhile, coach Balto amplifies his recipe for success by speaking at transportation, education, and environmental symposiums, all over the world 

Moreover, Coach Balto has taken to inviting world famous music celebrities, like Justin Timberlake (see here), and Benson Boone (see here) and they came. That's juice!

Meanwhile, Oregon Bicycle Racing enjoys a powerful peloton of hard driving athletes. NW Youth cycling programs are high quality. 

To be a competitive cycling program in the NW, the racing program's coaching staff need to level up to teams filled with National Champions.

Oregon and Washington Racing cycling Teams like EPIC, Horner, Booger, and Cascadia are sophisticated training programs, producing National Caliber athletes.

Circles allow resting without getting dropped,

Born in this modern day, our b.i.k.e. cyclists who usually train in playgrounds, parks, and parking lots, are starting to get an idea now that they are becoming a real cycling team. 

They are learning that cycling teams must train to ride long, elongate high speed intervals, and sprint.  

Our team is starting to realize our exercises make sense as a way
to improve.

Lapping the field is something everyone  says they want to do, but few can. "Pick me!" they say.  Meanwhile, riding in the pack is complained about as " this is too slow."

It's cold. After an hour or so, everyone wants to rest, or make a change. Letting them off the hook for the day leads them to sprint off in every direction. For at least another half hour they ride, but then one of the coaches comes out with a soccer ball and another half hour passes bye.

It's a hilariously dramatic dichotomy that leaves everyone tired and hungry for more of the corned beef brisket soup being heated up, and served with Bulgarian focaccia on the table under the roof. 

There is something special here, but we wonder what if five kids from the world of Bike Bus were to join our team? Who would we be then?

 Our young racers need rain coats, gloves, and tights. Please think of supporting the kids of b.i.k.e. (here)

Art for Speed?

Cycle to Art!

On Saturday, a small contingent set forth to practice riding on the open road.

Meeting deep in the SE FOPO neighborhood at the Atomic Ranch, athletes practiced bench press and lat pulls while improving their winter clothing outfit.    

Upon the call to "roll out!" the intrepid cyclists proceeded commuting to Mt. Scott Community Center where art awaited. (see why here)

Veteran cyclist Mikaya Richey led us on the bikes, and in the gallery. Mikaya is a
student of art and our Docent for the day.

Ignite the heart and train the body. Balance of mind body spirit is any good coaches' quest. 

But to train, you must train in good times and bad times. You must train properly, but in that journey, most train improperly once and a while. Beginners might train wrong until they get it right. A good coach enables the transition.

To grow and learn without injury is a blessing to give thanks for. Grace for yourself to make mistakes, leads to benevolence toward others when they are in their process to growth as well. Building a team gets easier when everyone enjoys the process.

If we work together as a small group, we become a team. In cycling, individuals use leg speed and power to participate. They get into groups and use the draft. We train in groups on the open road to simulate the racing challenges, like weather, and terrain, and EACH OTHER.

Trips to other destinations like Portland Art Museum are coming this winter. To support warm clothes, bikes, and restaurant meals on rides, please donate (here)

Mothers make TEAM work

Team Zane clicks into shape.

Under a roof, in the rain, a cycling family group clearly became a team.

Supported by their attentive coaching staff, they munched snacks, and heard news of their newly won Portland Art Museum tickets by their Development Director, Rispa Wambalaba. (pictured 2nd from right)

Master of prep, and facilitation.

Always in motion behind the team is her father Kennedy, placing cones on the course and picking beautiful tasty apples from the known nearby tree, as this was the school he raised his daughters in.

Support coaches are everywhere in this team's periphery, as many watch their progress and take periodic action on their behalf. Media was organized by Hall of Fame baseball coach, Mike Clopton and his pal Nick Krupke at KPTV 12. 

Volunteerism is rewarded, helmets, safety, and Nurses Talk Tough mentality, is nurtured by
Rick E.  

Mothers lead two columns.

Tech cycling is directed and protected by the Lore of Cyclisme, Tim Tebo Bergmann, Nils Liason Not, Mike Mann, Denzel Fitness, Yalchin Steady, and Sarah Joy.

By the end of the Bus Station Cycling Salon (see here) in the formidable heat of August, the children were engaged in building a cycling team, but after having shared in the televised glory 

Mother Mattie has been here before.

(see here) of their young coach, Oregon Ironman and National Champion, Zane Moore, their  lights really went on.  

They wanted more. They wanted more championship.

Digging in after Zane went off to college, they began to race each other, and form up cycling team formations. 

First, "Two Columns" was the call for action. 

Before the moms got on their bicycles, the children were diligent and glorious in their efforts, but hilariously chaotic. Training safely on grass on the last warm day of summer, they emulated a comedy skit from the Monty Python Show of the 1970's.

Reaching their parental limit, agonizing in supportive observation, mothers took to bicycles, and formed up two columns.  Suddenly, the troupe looked like a squad.  Movement was orderly and exciting. 

Big brothers' names were called out to attack and lap the field. Little sister chased, always under the watchful eye of mothers, friends, and coaches.

Bicycles and Ideas for Kids' Empowerment offer snacks, bikes, helmets and more, free of charge to their participants. b.i.k.e. is a 501c3 Please support our effort this giving season (here)
 

Imagine a Land...

Where HEROISM, and GRACE, like that on display at the alley by the intersection of Church Street and West Division formed a more perfect union.

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."              Abraham Lincoln

Caring for a community, is the work of unsung heroes. When the Robb Family was called by their elder brother Andra, they came.  Andra operates a small landscaping company called Dra's 5 Star Yard Care. 

Improvement has been the news of the month as Dra acquired his home and one down the block at auction in a last minute bid.

Happy and relieved, many members of the community were ready to celebrate the community leader's success.

Celebration was is in the air.

Now, on this day, everyone on the Division end of the Church street alley would feel the excitement too. It was a party. Well, a work party.

Led by the Robb Family, workers rolled up their sleeves to improve the yards of their neighbors. 

Pot holes in the alley were filled with sand from Maske's Organic Gardening.

Upon request, furniture and garbage was loaded into DP Dumpster Containers, and in no time the container was filled.

Lunch was served to everyone who walked by.

Kindness and strength were the Robb family personified, and on display at the service of their neighbors along their little alley way in Decatur, Illinois. 

Phoenix Rising

When one fights the good fight, life just shows them the way.

Team Major Taylor Pole Position

Perhaps while minding their own business, one gets the call. This sort of call, when answered, takes one to a great adventure. 

Steve Ballinger is just this sort of hero.  He believes in cycling, and uses his gifts to help others.

Racing the "Lil 5" Photo by Tiny Washington

Steve Ballinger is a true son of Illinois. His great, great, great grandfather James was farming, and manufacturing candles when Lincoln was still running around in bare feet. (see here)

Ballinger started racing his bicycle in Illinois when he was a youth. Later he went on to race in the Little 500 at Indiana University. He was thrilled to be called by Courtney Bishop (click on photo to full size and see Bishop on the right) of the Major Taylor Scholarship Foundation to go to college, and race for Team Major Taylor.

Back in Lincoln Land

While at Indiana University, Mr. Ballinger had a great team experience.  The unity and community of the Major Taylor Scholarship environment was tight knit.

An IU administrator named Tim Stockton, (on the left in picture at top) was a powerful influence on the young Ballinger. 

"Stockton was a rock of gentle kindness and wisdom," Ballinger said. "He was always calm. I've never seen him lose his cool once."

Steve went to on to marry and have two sons, and work in optometry, tech, and even oil. But the path took a toll on his mental health. He went through some tough times.

A divorce, and a stint of homelessness were just part of the saga. Bicycling was repeatedly the buoyant life saver, and emotional regulator.

Train Station

"It's cheaper than therapy! Ballinger laments when asked about the cost of his gravel bike.

When Ballinger heard Bicycles and Ideas for Kids' Empowerment was developing a sanctuary for cycling intellectuals in Decatur Illinois, he thought maybe this space was for him.

When this caller called out of the blue, and invited him to come work for no pay, and stay in a dilapidated old building, so he could give all of himself to build a grass roots cycling academy in Illinois, Steve Ballinger was unafraid, and on the first AMTRAK train smokin!

Now he chases the ground details for upcoming renditions of Lincoln Land, a 200k farm road cycling event, as well as the creation of  a Church Street Cycling Program, a Grass track, and the annual precursor to Lincoln Land:

Pick up the Block  Saturday, September 13th, 2025.

For the love of Decatur, Illinois

Good in the Hood

Too often news from the inner city is of degradation, or decay. 

Decatur's North Church street is no stranger to this narrative.

In the same fields that once held Grandma Heinkel's ponds and gardens, many old Decatur houses were demolished for security.  

Nonetheless, fearless locals know this is not the whole story. Hope, happiness and entrepreneurial vigor thrive in inner city Decatur. 

Darien Patterson and Andra Robb

Alley ways are some of the funnest places to be. Hidden, and removed, natural and soft underfoot, alley ways offer a different perspective of the homes and their back yards.

One example on North Church Street is a local Congregation bought and reconditioned an old house, fixed it up in grand style, and poured a concrete basketball court just off the alley that the local children play at regularly. 

Still, the alley way sometimes gathers trash, gets overgrown, and can even become impassable. 

Big pot holes, big puddles.

On the first Saturday in June 2024, presenting cook-out hospitality to their neighbors, two Decatur businessmen, Darien Patterson and Andra Robb ignited the fires of vision and neighborhood pride. They developed a plan to do most of the work in advance themselves, then cook up some good food, invite people, and host a work party called "Clean up The Block."  

The result was a rain-soaked clean-up party that offered nutrition for the body, and soul on the N. Church Street alley off West Division. 

Featuring a conspicuously flamboyant 10 x 20 white pop up tent with mosquito net windows seemed a bold sentinel against overwhelming odds. 

Community volunteers.

Springtime Illinois rain drops the size of snails poured hard against the earth, making it muddier and less desirable. 

Prospects were not looking good beforehand when the dark gray sun rose above the house tops and deciduous trees. 

After mowing throughout the previous week these Saturday morning rain storms seemed ominous , "It did not look good this morning," Robb said. "But I was going to put all that food out there no matter how much we got done." 

Neighborhood event promoter Andra Robb watched the huge drops smack the pavement with incredulous eyes. Hoping against hope, the time would be right to fire up his stoves.

Robb fired up his stoves to showcase a lunch of local faire. Maybe he was cooking for maybe twenty five to thirty people today. He had no way of knowing. The goal was to mow the grass, repair the pot holes in the alley, haul trash and eat bratwurst. 

Three big rain storms blew through town, yet laughter whooped and hollered out from under the tent. When the rain stopped the workers ran out and moved sand from Maskies or hauled a sofa to the big dumpster donated by DP Dumpster and Container.

Who knew lifting furniture and trash, filling pot holes, fleeing to a big tent filled with great food every time it rained, was in fact a great way to have big fun?

Sand from Maske's

Local Volunteers included neighborhood handy men, the promoter and his family, as well as folks visiting from Indianapolis and Kansas City. 

They took up repairing potholes in between rainstorms.

Our two sons of Decatur, Darien Patterson and Andra Robb had already implemented a multi day campaign of alley clean up of the few blocks long alley with mowing services, then on Saturday they presented for public consumption,  lunch and a dumpster. 

It was the perfect Saturday recipe for getting rid of clutter and "Spring cleaning" the house and yard.

Serving local Heinkel's Bratwurst to volunteers, rain soaked workers shoveled Maske's Organic Gardening alley gravel that somehow did not seem so heavy.  

Now pot holes were being filled just the week before the First Christian Church, and other congregations were going to present their summer prayer camps and parties along the alley. 

 

Back on the block, up and down the alley, neighborhood families were too happy to take the opportunity to fill a dumpster, as participation was brisk. Five houses participated.

Ali Jr. says, "Lets go!"

Dodging big rain, volunteers still filled the dumpster in less than two hours.

Ali Camara Jr. or "Lil Ali"  rode his bike on the dirt alley, and loved it!

Special Thanks to the Andra Robb Family, the Camara Family, Nik Gaffron, and Jay Johnson. Maske's Organic Gardening, Trump Printers, and Heinkel's Meat Packing Company.

Most of all, DP Dumpster and Container, and Dra's Five Star Lawn Services Dream Team. 

Without you, this would not have happened.

Grandma Heinkel would have been proud of this crew.

The invisible "Man Before."

D. Pulliam, D. Lall, R. Bahati, M. Richey, J. Williams
Poolside at LA Marriot

Cycling Coach David Pulliam is a Revolutionary

In American Bicycle Racing, the racing discipline of the Criterium is lead by what goes on in Southern California.  

For instance, Coryn (Rivera) Labecki of Garden Grove, recently won her second Pro National Criterium Championship two years in a row!

The Criterium race is typically a short fast circuit race that attacks tight turns on urban blocks, and is popular amongst fans and sponsors alike. Unlike road bicycle racing, the big packs of cyclists don't just fly by once after a long wait, but burst into sight every few minutes.

In American cycling,  the lion's share of America's Criterium National Champions rise up from streets of Los Angeles. Currently the most famous leaders of this discipline are faces of color, so often missing from the sport of cycling. In criterium racing, L.A.'s own, Coryn (Rivera) Labecki, Rahsaan Bahati, and the Williams brothers have revolutionized the discipline, and the sport.

What does this group have in common? They all were advised, served, or simply, their parents were befriended, by a little elder Angelino named David Pulliam.

Champions become champions because someone in the know recognizes their awkward and inelegant potential, and advises them with a palatable bit of relevant information. In any sport, with any developing star, there is a period of uncertainty when the careful voice of experience illuminates the budding brilliance within.

In SoCal bicycle racing circles, David Pulliam is recognized for his elegant timing, his kindness, and his endless generosity. This is not your "scream insults" type of coach.  Dave is a listener. His laughter is an affirming soul food for cyclists trying to get to the top.  After listening, Pulliam may not speak many words, but instead will show up the following day with the bike part that, upon his installation, make the athlete's back feel better and ride flat, out of the wind.

His words and maneuvers instill strength, speed, and technical skill into cycling athletes. Sometimes he works on the young Champion's parents. Other times he assists the coach they already have, and improves their training program with his curiosity.

Born in the late 1950s in Athen's Heights, David came up working construction with his father. Considered well mannered, and curious by the nuns at school, David was a small fella who wore glasses with a prescription as thick as coke bottles. 

David began riding and racing with the Major Motion Cycling Club in the 1980s. Major Motion, a predominantly African American cycling club took their name from the all but forgotten American World Champion of 1899, Marshall "Major" Taylor. The Major's incredible speed and aristocratic demeanor was world renowned at the turn of the century, but by the mid 1930's the collective memory had been erased in the United States. In the late-1990's the Major Motion Cycling Club of Los Angeles discovered their own Major Taylor incarnate when they nurtured a young man from Leimert Park named Rahsaan Bahati.

Bahati brightened the elite cycling scene when he won Silver at the Junior National Championships in 1999. He won the next year in 2000. Recruited for the National Team in Europe, he became a media darling. He was celebrated in, and beyond the American Cycling scene throughout the early 2000 and 2010's. As a professional cyclist, Rahsaan Bahati inspired up coming youth, and adult cyclists, around the world.

Three wide eyed young cyclists who as Belezian immigrants growing up in South Central saw the example of Bahati, were brothers Justin, CJ, and Cory Williams. Upon joining the Major Motion Junior Development squad, their father Calman, a bicycle racer himself, became fast friends with David Pulliam.   

Two peas in a pod at race side, Calman and Dave could be seen in close conference at Elite Junior races all over America. To this day, when asked about David Pulliam, Calman Willams becomes ebullient. "None of this could have happened without David!" exclaims Calman.

And what happened next, is as they say, history.

LEGION of LA , the unprecedented, and historic pro cycling team created by Justin Williams, leads modern American Pro Criterium Racing today. By building formidable "lead out" formations at the end of races, they win again and again. The "Lead Out" is a team formation that cuts the wind for the star who then "sits in" or rests while the team keep the speed to the finish so high, no one can come around before their star jumps away.

"The Williams brothers's Legion of LA came to dominate American criterium racing like no other team since Team 7-11 of the late 1980's." says Ken Nowakaski, retired head coach of nation leading, Marian College Cycling Program of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Los Angeles has become a fertile spawning ground for champion cyclists, especially in the discipline of criterium racing.  Criteriums are the most exciting, often frightening, tight circuit races that utilize speed and iron nerve. Cutting into corners on thin rubber tires only inches away from the next racer, is not for the faint of heart.

In the early two decades of this century, Dave Pulliam's Major Taylor Junior Development Cycling Program was pumping out National Champions regularly. Men were not the only product, either. Dave was very effective directing young female racers to the Championship Podium. Coryn perfected her sprint sprinting for traffic lights against Alex Garcia and Justin Williams.  Alexis and Kendal Ryan, as well as, Carla and Paulina Lopez came to the team to race with a young Corynn Rivera.

This began "the Mexican Connection"  Arturo and Ceazar Lopez were two fathers who brought their children to Dave. 

Freddy and Ricky Cruz were affiliated with Dave especially in preparation for a Canadian bench mark stage race called L'Attibi.  Freddy Cruz went on to coach Issac Del Toro who recently won Europe's highly esteemed Tour de France prep race called Tour de L'Avinir. 

(see Issac here)

Nowadays, Pulliam feeds his recruits into Damon Turner's Los Angeles Bicycle Academy. LABA's rise in bicycle racing over the last two years has been meteoric. It's no secret.

At race side the careful observer will see the very fastest racers take time to hold court with the venerable little man with the big glasses, because one bit of his advice can make all the difference between seeing it coming, or wondering what just happened.