Alas

 I'd considered adding this to the end of this morning's other post, but it, the person, deserves more than an addendum. Yesterday afternoon, a friend asked if I had heard of the death of Andy Bishop, who succumbed to cancer.

A few weeks ago, running with friends, we were comparing personal heroes, so I told my story of avoiding having heroes. 1995 was my first season with a pro license, and locally, it started amazingly. After finishing second in a sprint to Jan Wiejak in the first race, I'd won races four weekends in row and was leading the New England race series. The next weekend, before my first true pro race, a combined national and world cup at Mount Snow, I raced at Killington with a lot, maybe too much, confidence. When the field sprinted off the start line for the long climb to the summit, I casually started pedaling, figuring I had plenty of time, and strength, to catch them by the top.

That was true for all but two riders in front of me. It wasn't a technical descent, sticking to the open ski trail service roads, but large water bars every hundred yards did make comfort buddy hoppy at speed a big advantage, so I caught up just before reaching the bottom. Twenty-one year old boys who've just won four races can be cocky, so I greeted the first rider I caught with, "Wow, you really flew up the hill!" while thinking, "...but this lap I'm actually going to try." His reply, "Yeah, but I need to learn how to come back down!"

Then, he stood up right at the base as we started our second of two climbs to the summit. I thought, "If he's standing now, he'll never hold that to the finish," so I picked up my pace, but didn't try to match him. It was a long climb. Well, that rider could hold it, and even with losing time again on the final lap's descent, he crossed the finish line four minutes ahead of my much harder effort second lap. Even before I knew the gap was that big, I genuinely congratulated him at the finish and introduced myself, and he responded with, "I'm Andy."

Just Andy

It was a few minutes later that someone else said, "I think that was Andy Bishop." 

Oh. I knew there was a couple year old Motorola team photo on the wall of my bedroom, and I was pretty sure he was in it. I'd just had a sampling of just how fast the really fast riders are. When I made it home, I checked, sure enough, he was there in that picture along with John Tomac, Andy Hampsten, and another new, young pro named Lance Armstrong. I took the photo down, figuring if I was going to be racing these guys, I couldn't have them as heroes.

Unlike many other old road pros who were migrating to mountain biking to tap the new pool of cash, Andy never complained about the courses being too technical and challenging. He was truly professional and did learn to descend faster. He was also living in northern Vermont, so while it wasn't his bread and butter, like it was for me, we would regularly see him through the next few years at local New England races. 

While I did get faster, I never beat him, but I did get to know, and truly respect, the person who introduced himself as just Andy. He was one people I respected as much more than one of the fast guys. He was an amazing person, which I valued much more. I'm sure I no longer have that old Motorola team photo, but if I did, I'd rehang it for a bit.