ryan r roth and his photographs

Mister Competitive

That’s professor Allan Franklin. He is a downright nutty cycling fan. On exams he names planets after the likes of Pantini, Armstrong, and Merckx. I don’t always get his teaching style or support his erasing skills, but the guy is funny and smart. But then again, he’s also the professor who refused to let me vote in the primaries because we had an exam scheduled at the same time. That’s a story I’ll tell another time, but you can imagine that event alone left me a little irritated with him despite his affinity for cycling. 

…

A few weeks ago he was lecturing on angular velocity and momentum, when out of nowhere he made a strange statement that went something like this: “I have a friend who’s son is the national time trial champion for cycling”. “In the twelve year old category”. No one really oohed or aahed, so he felt compelled to tag on this statement: “And I bet he could beat anyone in this room in a race”.

Before my hand could shoot up, my voice shouted. 

“I’ll race him!”

This is in front of my class of 165 people, 162 of which I do not know. Professor Franklin turns to me with a look of surprise, clearly not expecting a challenger. “What?”. “I’ll race him”, I said. I couldn’t let him get away with such a statement in the cycling capital of the country…

We bantered back and forth for a bit in front of the class until he determined I was actually serious and then went back to physics. About ten minutes later he turned to me and said - “Are you willing to put something on the line? I’ve got to motivate this kid somehow.” To which I replied, “How about twenty bucks?” He looked at me kind of confused so I offered up, “Is that not enough? I’ll bet more”. “No, no that’s plenty”.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the back of my mind I was trying to do some calculations…

1. Clearly I can wrestle three of my circa 12 year old cousins to the ground at one time.
2. I used to bike like a crazy man in the mountains of Colorado.
3. But oh yea, I had hip surgery one year ago and have ridden my bike about 30 times since.
4. I have ridden ZERO times since October 2007. 

That’s not looking so good for me is it? Well the race is potentially going down on Sunday. Better get that flat tire fixed eh?

Filed by ryanroth at April 17th, 2008 under Endurants, General Radness, Young & Hip