Bicycle: Art Meets Form and High Point Cycling Classic

Over a six-day weekend, I drove 26 hours to and from High Point, North Carolina, for an event that combined a gallery show of bicycle art, a huge gathering of outstanding classic bicycles and the National Criterium Championship. It was worth all of the time and expense and then some.

I was reminded after decades on not seeing him that Bill Humphreys is one of the really nice guys in bike racing. He is the antithesis of the guys he talked about who had big egos that would make them inaccessible to those of us who were new to the sport and would never make it as racers.

Bill had been friendly and helpful years ago, and when I stumbled road weary into the bar at the High Point Plaza Thursday night, he introduced himself and ended up sitting and talking instead of retiring to his room with his take-out dinner.

Bill's book, The Jersey Project, illustrates much of the last fifty years of bicycle racing with hundreds of images of bicycle jerseys. Here is a link: http://thejerseyproject.com/index.php

I also cannot overstate the generosity of the locals, not only Chip Duckett and Dale Brown, but everybody I had contact with.

I was struck at breakfast one morning as a tablemate was trying to calculate the tip. “Twenty five percent of this breakfast is still too little.”  The waitresses were invariably cheerful, put up with random tablehopping and poured gallons of coffee as we sat and talked away the mornings.

The staff at the gallery and the showplace not only granted every request, but also went beyond, looking for things that could make the whole experience easier and more fun.