Hal Rothman — Tribute to a Cycling Buddy

Hal is the one in the yellow jersey. He couldn't ride any longer.

This time last year we lost a good friend and cycling buddy to ALS or what is commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. His name was Hal Rothman: cyclist, husband, father, and down-right genius if you ask me. Ted Kennedy said that Barrak Obama inspires him. Well, Hal Rothman inspired me when he was alive, inspires me today, and will most likely inspire me for the rest of my life. I must say, I've not met too many people who were what you would describe as bigger than life, but Hal Rothman was that way to me. I was never very close to Hal and you wouldn't describe us as best friends, but everytime we ending up riding together, you would think we were related somehow. Hal had a great way of making you feel part him, especially when he would expound on a particular historical subject or political topic. Hal was Jewish and I remember asking him about the Mideast situation and what he thought of it. What ensued was an oral dissertation on the creation of the earth by God, to the present situation today complete will all the details somehow packed in between. I used to just ride my bike and listen; often wondering how one person could stuff all that knowledge into their cranium!

Hal was a history professor and Chairman of the History Department at the University of Las Vegas Nevada, author of several books; and a nationally recognized expert on Las Vegas history, not to mention just about everything else. Hal was a great writer and he loved to talk. In fact, Cowboy, another riding buddy of mine, said, "yeah, you could never get him to shut up." That was Hal: ask him a question about some historical subject and he would expound for what seemed like hours. To this day, and I'm sure many more, when I think about Hal yaking up a storm while riding, it will always bring a smile to my face.

I've included some links below to things written about Hal. Please take a few minutes and explore them.

A few articles and some information about Hal Rothman.
UNLV Bio of Hal Rothman

Las Vegas Life Article about Hal

Review Journal Article about Hal

New West Article featuring Hal and his work.

Some of Hal's quotes.

Hal's Books

A couple of Hal's ride reports: Click on the links.
Lake Tahoe Century — 2005

Tour de France — 2005

Finally Did It — Butterfied Double Century!

Click on the graphic for 2008 Planet Ultra report and results

Finally after 4 attempts (albeit weak ones), this one is finally in the bag. Butterfield changed this year and actually reversed course that included an all new route. The organizers warned everyone before hand that this route is rather urban, so if you don’t like stoplights and local traffic, pass and do another ride. Altogether, the route was very tolerable and absolutely beautiful in most spots. I gotta tell ya, when the weather in Cali is nice, the riding is superb, hands down. A pretty large contingent of Nevada riders showed, and we even had 3 tackle the beast on single-speeds: Mike and Steph and Frank. True heroes and a heroine of pain to be sure. Especially that 8-10 percenter right after lunch, ugh! All honor to their names! The rest of us slackers used our geared bikes to guide us up and through the tough climbs. Urban is not necessary bad, especially early in the morning and on a Saturday. We did, however, have our share of red-light runners (shame on you) and urinating on state-park property thugs, however. All of which were singled out and chastised profusely by the Planet Ultra higher-headquarters ride organizers. As a result, they are gonna put marshals out there next year to catch all you hooligans who think that red lights are only for cars. So, keep the Johnson where it belongs and use the provided facilities next time, OK? Forewarned is forearmed!

Mozam, Steph and Lisa cruise the PCH

Butterfield (which will be renamed to something else later) gives you a bit of everything really. Cruising along the beach; a bit of urban sprawl complete with some of the biggest estate homes you will ever see; to a gorgeous countryside spattered with horse farms, avocado orchards, and a few killer climbs thrown in just for fun. The support was pretty damn good too. If you are looking for a stop every 25 miles on these doubles, pass because you will be sorely disappointed. But, the SAG stops available were always stocked with plenty of food and drink, not to mention some pretty cool folks who managed to keep a smile on their face for some pretty long hours. My hat is off to these people. The most they get is a t-shirt and a surly comment from some idiot who can’t seem to appreciate what it takes to support one of these events. So, I always make a point of being very thankful and outwardly appreciative for all they do so I can enjoy myself.

Mark and Al cruisin' out of the Mountains

I relearned quite a few lessons on this ride. I basically violated every rule I had ever set for myself when riding a Double Century by not staying true to my riding plan. First off, we waited around at every rest stop for way too long. That’s basically a show-stopper in and amongst itself. You get tired, stiff, and suffer from mental fatigue. So, it is better to spend as little time off the bike as possible. We also stopped at points along the way much too often. It is better to slow down and let someone catch up than stop rolling altogether. We also lolly-gagged at lunch way too much and that compounded our timing problem even further. The bottom-line: keep moving and learn to refuel and hydrate on the bike as much as possible. Finally, I highly recommend sticking with your plan once you establish the plan in your mind. Compromising your plan for others will only lead to frustration on your part over the long haul. Once I realized that I had completely compromised my plan, the impact of my actions did not hit me until I tagged up with a group of really cool folks with about 7 miles to go to the finish. The guy next to me in the peleton said, “well, at least we will make the time limit!” Holy shit, I thought as I looked at my watch. I had ridden 187 miles and I was in a potential situation of being disqualified because I couldn’t complete the ride in 17 hours. I felt like a complete idiot because I had completely lost track of where I was and what time I was supposed to be there! So, keep the stress level to a minimum by following your own pacing schedule, the ride goes a lot smoother and you are a lot happier with results of your efforts.

Ending on the upside: It was a gorgeous day with perfect riding conditions. I met some really cool new folks towards the end of the ride, and I just had a blast bombing down Santiago Canyon in the pitch-black darkness. I know, sick isn’t it? And…I got to ride through some beautiful California scenery that can only be appreciated when you see it from a bicycle. I’ll be back next year, you can count on that!

See a slide show ride here
Read about the Butterfield Double Century here

Too Many Bikes?

My Trusty Steeds Await!

I was in my garage the other day and a question popped into my middle-aged noggin’: Geez, do I have too many bikes? Nah, you can never have too many bikes, right? It is a guy thing I guess. Kinda like too many tools! You can never, ever have too many tools. I can prove it too. When my Dad died back in 1991, my Mom gave me all his tools, at least almost all of them anyway. What I discovered was that not only did I get my Dad’s tools, but I got his Dad’s tools too!

Seems every time someone comes over to visit, the inevitable tour of the house follows, and they always say the same thing when they enter the garage: “Man, you have a lot of bikes!” And…invariably they always start a verbal count…one, two, three, on…and on…and on…until they satisfy themselves that I, indeed, have too many bikes. Then the conversation usually centers on my justification of too many bikes and the fact that I, indeed, ride every single one of them. I even get a little embarrassed sometimes and add, “well, I do build my own so the cost stays down.” Robin Williams is a big cyclist (50 bikes, last I heard) and he buys a new bike practically every time he sees one. His wife commented one day saying that he had too many bikes. His reply: “well, they could be Ferrari’s.” Man, I can identify with that statement for sure. I’d feel a little guilty about having too many bikes, but I do in fact ride every one of them, and I enjoy it.

I even tried to get rid of a few frames once, but they are kinda like old friends now ya know. They keep coming back like homing pigeons or something. I tried to sell the Team Fuji on EBay, but nobody wanted the darn thing even though I lowered the price several times. So, I gave it a face lift and turned that puppy into a single speed. And it was a good thing I did, too. I’ve never had so much fun on a bike before. I also tried to get rid of the old Trek 2300 first-generation carbon-aluminum frame and nobody wanted that either. Couldn’t even give the darn thing away. So, I kept that one too and my plan is to turn it into a straight-bar road machine for be-bopping around the neighborhood.

OK, You can stay...But you can have only one gear!

They say the measure of a man is what people remember about him once he’s dead and gone. Well, as far as I’m concerned they can remember me as: Mozam, the guy who had a lot of bikes!

One Cold, Dark Commute...

Today was my first commute of 2008 and in a word, it was cold! 27 °F and dark too! Back to that in a second. It appears that some busy-body, no-account asshole intent on keeping track of peoples’ comings and goings decided to single me out for scrutiny. I was told that I was creating an impression of taking too liberal a view of working out at lunch. The regulation (yeah it sucks working for da guv-ment) clearly states that I can take an hour-and-a-half 3 days a week to workout (GWB’s initiative to keep us all from dropping dead). So, I had been combining my workout with my lunch hour to get a few miles in. Actually, I was only riding for little over an hour on my riding days for about 20 miles or so. Well, this just didn’t sit well with some no doubt fat-chain-smoking creep, and now I’m told to correct that perception. So, in a few words and reading between the lines that means, “stop riding your bike at lunch.” So, if I want any miles during the week, I either commute, or ride after work in order to comply with the request from on-high. Ya know, I watch all these smokers around here take time away from their work at least 10 times a day for 10 minutes at a crack, to suck down a proven cause of cancer, and the leadership tells me I can’t go for a ride to keep myself healthy. What bullshit! But, being the good trained soldier, er uh, retired-military dog that I’m am, I just shut my mouth and implemented plan B. One thing that I learned as a graduate of the United States Air Force Weapons School (TopGun for all you Tom Cruise fans) is to always, always, always…have a plan B.

Note to self: plug in battery to fancy, expensive, flame-throwing light BEFORE early morning commute. Hey, what do these two red lights mean? Yep, 5 minutes out and on a dark bike trail with no street lights, I’m riding blind! Helen Keller Mozam, Whoohooo! Quick thinking on my part to switch on the backup light kept me from endo’ing on the upcoming rock (we have a lot of those here) in front of me, and directly in the path of my front wheel. There’s nothing like an adrenaline rush like that at 5am to get the ‘ole ticker going! The song, “What a dumbass” kept playing in my head over and over again followed by an encore of “Color Me Stupid”.

Pretending to be Helen Keller



It has been awhile since I rode so early in the morning and in such darkness, and I was reminded again of how much more attention you have to pay to drivers at such an early hour. The one’s that really getcha are the numbskulls that pull out of side streets 90 degrees to your path. They do that, “maybe I’ll stop here, but not really, look in the opposite direction first kinda thing” while rolling through a stop sign. Makes me wish I had a hammer so I could put a big fat dent in their hood as I pass by. Oh well, off into the concrete combat zone on my trusty two wheeled steed I go! “Know thy enemy, know thy self”.