The Peter L. Teeuwen Memorial Ride

I sat in my warm home looking out the window at the rare snow falling, whipped by wind gusts and felt the embrace of the wood stove's presence. The coast is so viscerally raw in these conditions. It's as if it wants to push us all away from the very place buried by the summer's hordes later in the year. Locals here know this snow event thing is rare and fleeting. The rain that followed confirmed this and worked for hours and hours to wash the white blanket away. We are now left with only wind and cold, cold, cold.

Two weeks ago I rode with about 40 other cyclists to honor the memory of Peter Teeuwen in Chesapeake, Virginia. Among the riders were Peter's brother, Gerald and his son John. His daughter, Christina, was at the Grassfield Ruritan Club building with others preparing the potluck meal the cyclists attending had brought this day.

When I arrived riders were going in and out of the building and standing around the back of their vehicles pumping tires and wrapping up for a ride we all knew would challenge only a freezing north wind and not each other. We rolled our bikes out to Shillaleigh Road with Gerald standing by his bike at the head of the group with John, his son, moving to his side.

I noticed Gerald looking around as if someone was still to arrive. Then I noticed 3 guys move into position by his side with the letters "VBW" on the backs of their kits. They were members of Virgina Beach Wheelmen and all were competitive cyclists: Jonathan Nisbet, Tim Shockey, and Tom Tomayo. Their connection to Peter Teeuwen I would learn later was quite special.

We set off down the road, the same road, the same course and direction many here ride in the Peter L. Teeuwen Time Trial known among cyclists as the "PLT." The first leg of the 23-mile course was downwind. The group's riders found their places. I was trying to move up near Gerald and his entourage so that I could do a little eavesdropping. I knew it would be good.

As we wound downwind we settled into a 20-21 mph pace. A rider named Andreas rode to my right and we talked a little on the ride. Turns out he's a Category 3 racer and knows Robert a friend and member of our club, GS Outer Banks. He told me he had recently purchased bikes for his wife and daughter and they all were getting some riding in together.

I remarked how much I loved to hear the distinct whisper on group rides of spokes slicing the air. Gerald came off the front group and dropped back along with John and the VBW riders. The guys on the front strained forward seeming to want to ride faster. We were up to 23+ mph now. I heard someone call my name from behind and I assumed correctly it was Gerald and he wanted me to rein the tempo in a little. So I relayed the message to the front and everybody eased back some.

For many of us, it's something new to just relax and ride with the very people you compete in races against all of each season for years. It's like seeing them and automatically flipping into the race mode.

Peter Teeuwen, according to Gerald, had not died on the road, but maybe as a result of a series of head injuries received crashing in road races over the years. He was forty-one years old when he passed away.

The last 6 miles we were back on the stick of the lollipop course returning to the Ruritan Club bucking the north wind. We traded pulls with plenty of riders to share the work, each thanking the rider coming off the front after his effort.

The Chesapeake police had come out to stand traffic guard for us at the corners of the course just like they always do for the PLT's. It all looked the same as it does during a time trial. But unlike the time trials, today's ride allowed us to ride the course sub-anaerobic threshold. No red lining and spitting up internal organs on the final mile to the finish line today.

Also unlike the PLT's, there was hot coffee and a fine meal waiting in the clubhouse when we returned. Inside there were three rows of tables covered with cloth tableclothes and potted plants called Cyclamens with their floppy pink petals grown by Gerald's family in their greenhouses I suppose. There was another table with a computer scrollng photos of the Teeuwen's racing days and a stand-up collage of friend and family photos.

So we all ate together---the cyclists, the police, and the family. While we sat, Jonathan Nisbet and Tom Tomayo came to the front of the room and told us of three 15-year-old boys who had been lured into cycling and then encouraged and groomed to compete in races by a local bike racer. They were shown how to do it---how to put on the strange tight-fitting cycling kits, how to trust clipping your shoes to the pedals, and how to train and mentally prepare for this very arcane sport in America.

They were carried to races everywhere and discovered a passion and place they didn't know existed. The veteran bike racer who took them even far away to race, endured their adolescent attitudes and behavior with boundless patience even when they drove golf balls in hotel hallways and explored the possibilities of light explosives and fireworks. The races had lit a fire in them.

So here they stood in their mid-thirties still missing their mentor, Peter L. Teeuwen, but still loving the sport he had shown them. However no one misses Peter, I observed, more than this family. Of this I am certain. And here before us all was the human legacy Peter had left. Nothing in this world counts more than this. Nothing.