Way back, in what seems like another lifetime, I was a high school teacher. In case you have not heard, high school teachers do not make a ton of money, so I, like so many others before and since, had to have a side hustle or two to make ends meet.
As I have mentioned a number of times here, I spent my summers as a cycling tour guide in Europe, but that was far from lucrative; my financial goal during the summers was to come close to breaking even. Given my crushing student debt (or at least it felt so at the time), I also needed a way to supplement my income during the school year and as such, I worked part time in local bike shops.
While teaching at Marin Academy in San Rafael, California, I spent most of my weekends and at least a few weeknights selling and, occasionally, repairing bikes at Sausalito Cyclery, once owned by the Red Rocker himself, Sammy Haggar (it is now part of the Mike’s Bikes empire, which if you live in the Bay Area, you know what I mean).
Sammy was a big mountain biker. This classic shot of the Golden Gate Bridge is in the Marin Headlands, not far from the shop. Credit: © Jay Blakesberg
At the time, Sausalito Cyclery was one of the two best shops in all of Marin County and benefitted greatly from its location: it sat right at the beginning of the bike trail that linked Sausalito to the rest of the county, including Tiburon. The “Tiburon loop” was (and is) one of the more popular rides for denizens of San Francisco, just to the south.
If you are a cyclist and you have not yet ridden the Tiburon loop starting in San Francisco (and thus crossing the Golden Gate bridge twice), you must immediately put it atop your bucket list.
In the summer, it was easy to tell which cyclists were Marinites and which had come from “the city” as the latter were dressed head to toe as if a snow squall were expected to blow in at any moment.
It also afforded us many visits by local and national celebrities and I did quite well selling high-end bikes to the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Madonna (quite the mountain biker), and Sean Penn to name a few (OK, I sold the bike to Sean Penn’s manager, but that garnered me an invite to a party at Sean Penn’s house, who was married to Robin Wright at the time, but that story will have to wait).
Easily, though, the most frequent A-lister that came into the shop was Robin Williams. He must have come in at least a dozen times during my time at the shop and each encounter was eerily similar. Despite the popularity of the shop, he would always appear when there was literally no one else there, not a single other customer. He was almost always with his riding buddy, a former Cat 2 racer (whose name I forget at this point).
Robin with his Cannondale Carbon Six which he likely bought from our shop (but well after I had left). Credit: © Startraks Photo/REX/Shutterstock
When he would come in, it was pretty clear that he was a rather shy and reserved person. I know that sounds crazy given his public persona, but had I not known who he was (I mean, it was Robin Williams for chrissakes), he would have been some other bike nerd, wanting to see the latest technology or maybe chat a bit about bike racing (which meant Lance Armstrong at the time).
That would all change, however, if another customer would enter the store and recognize him. In an instant, he would switch from being the shy bike nerd to the whirling dervish of his standup routine. We would all be laughing hysterically in a matter of seconds but before anyone could beg for more, he would be hopping back on his bike, no doubt preferring the relative solitude of the Marin coastline to the quickly developing horde of admirers.
Robin and Lance were pals. Back when it was cool to be pals with Lance. Credit: © Reuters
Over the course of a handful of years, I sold Robin a few bikes, but it was not like he needed them: he once told me that he had over fifty top-end (at least when he bought them) racing bikes (that number had reached 87 at the time of his death). He had so many, in fact, that his brother once asked him if he could, like, you know, have one that he wasn’t using? Robin apparently declined giving up one of his flock, instead, he sent his brother into the shop and told me that he would pay for whatever bike he wanted.
When he died in 2014, his family auctioned off his bikes for charity. I am pretty sure I sold him this Kestrel 500 SCI.
… and this Trek U.S. Postal carbon fiber Time Trial bike. (Both photos from sterba-bike.cz)
Whenever he was shooting a picture in the Bay Area, we would have a pretty steady stream of folks from the production crew pass through the shop at his direction to get a bike; it seems he spread the gospel of cycling almost as much as he made us laugh.
On one random afternoon, Robin came in (again, with no one else in the shop) and while showing him the latest carbon frame, he seemed to notice my height for the first time (I am 6’4″ and he was a mere 5’7″). “You certainly are a tall one”, he said, “did you ever play basketball?” I told him I played in college and that was pretty much the end of it. I thought.
The next day, his production assistant came into the shop and asked if I wanted to be in Robin’s new movie. Huh? Apparently, he was shooting several scenes that involved basketball players and he thought I would be perfect. Well, that didn’t work out in the end, which was probably for the best; the movie was Flubber and given its negative reviews from nearly every critic, it would have likely ended my screen career.
Why do I mention all of this now? Several years after I had moved back to the East Coast, I heard the sad news that Robin Williams had taken his own life after years of suffering with Lewy body dementia.
Sunday, August 11th, marks the tenth anniversary of his passing and while I am in no way trying to pretend that we were in any way great friends, I plan on going for a ride this weekend. And to make my kids laugh.
the drunken cyclist 