The Mad Hatter's Tea Party Madness (or why we ride March Madness)
Recently, we all have had to learn to make do with less. In prescient fashion, our Davis Bike Club anticipated this trend toward frugality in all things. Out of a desire to husband our resources March Madness was born.
In this time of vitriol, budgetary woes and political pundits who cannot tell a libel from a label we all have had to learn to make do with less. Some want less government, some want less involvement and many appear to want less intelligence. In prescient fashion, our Davis Bike Club anticipated this trend toward frugality in all things. Out of a desire to husband our resources March Madness was born.
We have members who excel at fiscal prudence. Do not dare to think of them so crass as to be cheap. Just because they make their children take off their glasses if they are not looking at anything does make them deserving of that sobriquet. Their desire to scrimp and save simply leaves more left for their bicycles, bicycle parts, clothing and lubricants of all sorts. We can be a wild, though thrifty, lot.
Well over a decade now some of our senior cycling leadership decided to bet on who could ride the most miles in the month of March. Weather being what it is in late winter, this was a challenge deserving of a momentous reward honoring the winner. The full cost of a breakfast at a café popular with frugal cyclists was named the prize. Good heavens, if the winner were to order juice and coffee as well as food the sum of the bill could reach into the low two figures! The gauntlet had been thrown, the die cast, and the Rubicon crossed where the rubber hits the road. Taunts and barbs were hurled, and the month ended with a phone call on the last night of March with a promise that the riding was over. This was swiftly followed with the winning rider immediately hopping aboard his bicycle and riding up and down Covell Boulevard until midnight to log enough mileage to pass his competition. Thus began another March Madness tradition: the tradition of vicious psychological warfare in the quest for victory.
The next year more riders joined in the March Madness and by the third year another senior member had the idea to turn this into a charitable event. Husbanding resources includes protecting future cycling generations, after all. Without the youngest of cyclists, we would have no source for future curmudgeons of the wheel. We decided to use March Madness to raise money for children’s helmets to be given away to those most in need. Another member had experience in helmet giveaways, and volunteered to assist. The planning was done, and the school district approached. Sadly, the program was turned down initially and all was ended before it began. Revolutions are not born in the light of day and administrative meetings, however, but in the darkness of nighttime wharves by those dressed in costume, or sometimes in elementary schools with dragons by those dressed in lycra. Stuffing the teachers mailboxes, it turned out there were many children in need even here in Camelot on the Prairie. Arrangements were made, helmets procured, volunteers trained, and the day arrived when dozens of happy young faces beamed underneath their new safety lids. The press had a field day as the news was flashed across town. In those halcyon days of yesteryear, blogs were distributed on folded and rolled sheets of paper (and frequently delivered by young people on bicycles) so flashing information took somewhat longer.
Having succeeded once, the next year was a given. The program was established not by administrative nor by legislative but by velorutive fiat. The Davis Bike Club was off and running, distributing helmets across town at a number of elementary schools. The following year saw the program extend to other districts in the county, and it wasn’t long before other counties were included as well. Hoops were jumped through, Gordian knots untied and dilemmas dehorned as qualifications were attained to allow the Davis Bike Club to obtain helmets directly from the manufacturer under the most advantageous of terms. Wholesale pricing was not low enough. Frugality allowed us to reach more and more children.
There were disagreements. Our target population was questioned by some. Not all children receiving helmets necessarily had bicycles. Several were homeless and living out of cars. For less than a five spot we were able to give them something very special. They received a message of safety, the knowledge that there were adults that cared about them, and a new helmet to remember it all by. As we left schools we saw the children playing at recess, refusing to take the helmets off as they came and went from class. There was little doubt that we had done the right thing, even if some helmets were not used for the intended purpose.
Today the event we call March Madness has grown, costs have increased, and the need has sadly expanded. We have an opportunity to do something worthwhile on our bicycles. Despite the trials, trepidations and tea soaked nature of our current day we remain both committed and committable. There are more demands on our time and finances than ever before. Even now, despite over a decade and the ravages of inflation, the cost of a helmet does not exceed the cost of that original breakfast. Please give us your miles in March. We will make them go farther than you had imagined.
Paul “Fiscal Conservative” Guttenberg
N.B.: “velorutive” may not be a word as yet, but it certainly should be -Ed.
