Originally Posted by BumbleBeeDave
. . . but I've been writing down my thoughts this past week and I think this sums it up for me.
BBD
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I’m embarrassed to say I don’t remember exactly when I met Pete McKeon for the first time, but it must have been at the 2002 or 2003 Serotta factory event. I remember he had a slightly gravelly voice that might at first have led you to think he wasn’t very friendly. But I quickly found out that nothing could be further from the truth.
Pete was one of the friendliest and most helpful guys you could ever meet, and he proved it again and again over the following years as I continued to read the Serotta Forum and eventually became a moderator at Pete’s invitation.
Pete was a huge Serotta fan and had been a customer of Ben’s for many years. When Ben needed help to build the new factory on Geyser Road in Saratoga in, he started the Founder’s Club, and Pete was one of the first to step up. He bought one of the first Ottrott’s and my understanding is he had the #1 Founder’s Club plaque on the top tube.
Pete always joked that he only had ONE bike. I found out that wasn’t quite true when I eventually went to visit him. He never would admit it, but I suspected that his private joke was that the ONE bike he always insisted he had was the ONE he happened to be riding at any particular time. Let’s just say he had more than one, and that many were Serottas.
He wasn’t your typical tall, lanky cycling enthusiast. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who enjoyed getting out on a bike more to get in some miles with friends. Always good natured, always considerate, always riding like a gentleman.
Pete also got a lot of mileage out of his self-professed love for “a good glass of Red,” as he called it. He seemed to feel that just about any problem or disagreement in life was solvable if the disputing parties could just sit down for a good glass of Red and talk it out. I think if he had been appointed Secretary of State there would be a lot fewer problems in the world today.
He could also laugh at himself about it, too. I remember one time somebody posted a photo of some people lounging in a hot tub filled entirely with Red, and he took all the ribbing in stride.
Pete asked me to be a moderator in 2007, I think. I’m also a little embarrassed to not remember that date exactly, either. He had agreed to take on the job for Ben several years before when Serotta took over administration of the old forum run by Kahuna (Gary). Once I was on the inside, I saw just how much unseen time and effort he put into running the forum.
It was a lot of work to run our 24/7/365 neighborhood cycling tavern, but I never saw him get annoyed with it without really good cause. I found out he often spent several hours a day on it, and he seemed to understand that when you throw open the virtual doors to everybody, that’s exactly who’s going to walk in. Every tavern has a few difficult customers and a few crazies, both harmless and otherwise. Sometimes you have to be patient, and sometimes you have to toss out somebody who won’t respect the rules. He dealt with them all and made it all work and taught the rest of us to do it, too.
In the fall of 2008 I was laid off unexpectedly from my journalism job of 17 years and was calm about it on the outside. But on the inside I was freaking out about what I would do to keep things going in the short term and make a future career. Pete invited me to come down to visit him in Raleigh and he and Linda opened their home to me—one of many times they hosted Pete’s cycling friends, from what I’ve heard. I remember sitting with him in his kitchen with his dogs, drinking coffee and getting some great advice from his years of experience as a project and IT manager.
It’ll be OK, he said. Have confidence in yourself and your experience and skills and other people will, too. So I tried my best and he was right. It all worked out. I’ve had some setbacks since then, but his advice has always been valuable.
Then we went out for some rides on his favorite roads through the local fields and pine forest. One day I got to ride his newest “ONE bike,” Kelly Bedford’s frame number one, a beautiful cream-colored steel frame and fork that reminded me of how good a masterful frame, built by a master craftsman, can feel. I can still remember the spring in that frame and how good it felt, not just to be riding it, but also to be riding with Pete.
The next day we went out I got to ride his Meivici. That was my choice, but he made it clear I could ride whichever bike I wanted from his stable. I didn’t take any photos on either of those rides. Now I wish I had.
I haven’t seen Pete very often in the last couple of years. That unfortunately happens way too much in today’s world. There’s so much going on, and it seems that every time you look back you think you just blinked and a year has gone by. But I got the feeling that once he found out his time might be limited, Pete got to work on enjoying life as much as possible, riding as much as possible, enjoying a glass of red with as many old and new friends as possible, and spending as much quality time as possible with the ones who counted to him.
If you belong to The Paceline today and enjoy what goes on here, then you owe a debt of gratitude that you probably never knew about to your friend, Pete McKeon. If it hadn’t been for all his work and support, this forum would not exist now and you’d have to find some other virtual cycling bar to hang out in.
Now I hope he is somewhere where he can do all his favorite things without having to worry about time running out. It’s a place where the Red is always perfectly chilled, where he and his ONE bike will always have perfect new pavement to ride on, and there will never be any flat tires.
Tailwinds, Pete. Always tailwinds. Godspeed.
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10-15-2014, 07:04 PM
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