On The Road
by: Bill Oetinger 1/1/2007
Seize the Day
In September, I wrote a column about some of the more notable personalities who have been involved with the Terrible Two double century over the years. One of the people I wrote about was Bill Ripke, who is currently tied for the record for most TT's completed. This is what I said about him: "Bill Ripke has...started 16 TT's and finished 14 of them. Eleven of his 14 finishes have been in the top 30. Bill is still relatively young--42--so he ought to be able to add to that total in the years ahead."
On Monday, November 6, Bill suffered a massive heart attack while driving on I-80 near his home in Pinole. He managed to get the car down an off-ramp before crashing, but he was dead before any help arrived.
I was absolutely stunned to learn that Bill had died, and in particular, that he had died of a heart attack at 42 years of age. I can't offhand think of anyone I know who appeared so robust and in such good health. His wife Andi tells me there was a family history of heart trouble: both his father and grandfather had died of heart attacks at the age of 56. But with that history in mind, Bill had dedicated himself to being as healthy as he could be. Health was his life and his business. He earned a BA in Physical Education and Nutrition and a Masters in Exercise Physiology, and he worked for PacBell as an Exercise Physiologist.
On the bike, Bill was one tough cookie, as his record at the Terrible Two will attest. He did other doubles too, and countless centuries and races. He and I didn't ride together much. He was way too fast for me. But occasionally we would find ourselves riding together, and over the course of so many years and so many rides, those moments of companionship added up to a nice relationship. He was, quite simply, one of my favorite people on the doubles circuit. Always cheerful and positive, and always willing to dial his tempo back a notch when we hooked up during a ride, at least for a few minutes, so that we could chat. He was a very classy guy, and I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that I will never see him again.
Someone who rode more at Bill's speed was Paul McKenzie. Paul sent me this note: "I am deeply saddened by the news about Bill Ripke. I met Bill on my first TT, 1996 I believe. Bill followed the wheel of my tandem while Ray Plumhoff and I set our first tandem record on the ride. I think we came in third overall. Bill was an amazing rider, and a remarkably good climber. Bill was a big, strong, kind, and very intelligent man, and it's with some irony that I say he had a big heart. After that ride, I've come to know Bill well over the years. He completed my Nifty Ten Fifty ride two years ago, and I finished with him this year on the TT along with Jim Frink. We joked about how many TT's we had between us, something like 36. I will miss Bill greatly. He was a wonderful man and I am proud to have known him and to have shared some great cycling adventures with him."
The week that Bill died was an especially hard one for those of us in the Santa Rosa Cycling Club. On Friday, November 10, 
our good friend and regular cycling companion Kathy Hiebel was run over by a truck and crushed to death as she was riding to meet the gang for the club's Friendly Friday ride. No need to go into the details of the accident, except to say that death was probably instantaneous, and that beyond a brief moment of surprise and shock, she likely never knew what hit her. She was 47 years old.
I've known Kathy for at least ten years, and I've know her life's companion Maury and her best girlfriend Martha even longer. She and I have ridden together more times than I could count. We just did a cycle-tour together in September, and she had been over to our house for dinner just a week before she was killed. She was family.
Kathy had her own history of heart trouble. She had undergone open-heart surgery a few years ago, but she had come storming back from that radical procedure to be stronger and to ride better than she had before. We all admired her for battling back and coming out on top. She was a gutsy lady. She was also kind and generous and supportive, which is only what one would expect from someone in her profession. She was a nurse at Kaiser.
This has not been a good year for the extended family of cyclists in Santa Rosa. In July, we lost our pal Robert Rand to a rare cancer. He was only 44, and he leaves behind his wife Pilar and their two-year old son Owen. He was a teacher at Analy High School in Sebastopol. His classroom windows overlook the start-finish line for the Terrible Two. He was a Terrible Two finisher as well. I had known Robert even longer than I had known Kathy or Bill Ripke. We go way back. We had been riding together pretty much as long as either of us had been involved with the club...back into the 80's, I guess. We had toured together all over the map, had done numberless weekend club rides together and even more impromptu pick-up rides with our little gang of Lazy Boyz and Girlz (our club within the club).
I remember so many fun moments riding with him. I recall one ride down in Chileno Valley where the two of us went off the front of the group on a long uphill grade, duking it out for the hill prime in one of those silly games of half-wheel hell. Neither of us would back down. We just kept on hammering until we were both about to blow. Then we made the mistake of looking over at one another, and we both cracked up...laughing together, half at the absurdity of our pathetic attempts at race-pace bravura, and half for the simple joy of being out there, horsing around like a couple of overgrown boys.
Robert battled his cancer like a bulldog. He never gave up, still hoping and planning to go with us on a tour we did in July. He didn't make it, but we dedicated the tour to him and carried him with us as our spiritual stoker.
In April, we lost Sandy Karraker to breast cancer. She was 62. Sandy too had been a part of my Santa Rosa Cycling Club life for as long as I have been in the club. She and I didn't ride at the same pace and weren't likely to be found on the same rides, but we always crossed paths at the club's social functions...club meetings and dinners and picnics. I remember Sandy especially for one small act of kindness. When my daughter was heading off to college and was in need of a campus bike, I put out the call on the club grapevine and Sandy responded. I expected to buy the bike, but she simply gave it to my daughter. Robyn has ridden that bike for over a dozen years...well past college and on into her working life, using it for daily commuting. She has only lately stopped, as she is expecting her first child just about the time this column will be hitting the cyber-street. That one little act of kindness on Sandy's part paid huge dividends, years and years after the fact.
Sandy never gave up either. Even in the last weeks of her life, she would still ride her bike to her radiation treatments, three times a week, 32 miles round trip.
In February, we lost Herb Greenberg to cancer. Herb was no youngster--he was 81--so perhaps his passing seems less cruel, but it is nevertheless a great loss to those of us who knew him and cared for him, not least his wife Anne and his two sons. What can I say about Herb? As "Monsieur Greenberg," he taught French to high school students in Santa Rosa for 25 years. After he retired, he continued to work as a tutor and substitute teacher, using his own money to pay for field trips for low-income students. For many years, he was the heart and soul of the Bike Rodeo program, traveling to elementary schools to teach kids about bike safety and riding skills. Thousands of children benefited from his guidance in this effort. He too has a Terrible Two connection. For something like 15 years, he ran the Fort Ross rest stop at mile 165, dishing out sympathy, hot soup, and encouragement to tired riders facing the prospect of the dreaded Fort Ross climb, just a few yards beyond the rest stop. His own cycling accomplishments were nothing to sniff at either, including riding from Alaska to the lower 48. I remember him participating in our challenging Bigfoot Tour in 2000, at age 75. He did all the miles and all the hills and never missed a beat, even as other, younger riders were wilting.
Beyond all of Herb's accomplishments and good works, what we may remember most fondly about him was his easygoing kindness and courtesy; his dry, wry wit that was equal parts irony and self-effacing humility. Altogether, it added up to the very definition of a charming gentleman.
So...where am I going with this serial obituary? I will tell you: first of all, I am honoring the memories of some wonderful people. We who knew them are poorer for their passing, but we are richer for having had them in our lives. Every one of them was what I call a net-positive person. They left this world a better place than they found it.
I don't know if there is life after death. Everyone has their theories about that--the dogma that gets run over by the karma--but no one really knows. I don't have much faith in faith...in belief in some religious house of cards. I have my own half-baked theories about it, same as everyone else. But mostly I have an open mind: whatever comes next, I am looking forward to it. If it's nothing...just lights out...then I guess I won't be in any position to mind, one way or another. If it turns out there is some afterlife experience, I hope I'm flexible enough and curious enough to roll with it; to take it in stride.
I do know one thing though: there is life after death for the living, and there is at least one form of afterlife for those who have gone off the front...for Bill and Kathy and Robert and Sandy and Herb; for everyone from James Brown to Gerald Ford...and that afterlife consists of the memories cherished by those who live on. If heaven exists at all, it may be that it exists in the memories of our friends. Along with Andi Ripke and Pilar Rand and the spouses of all of those others, I am a surviving spouse...a member of that club that no one wants to join. My first wife died of cancer at the age of 28. And although I have moved on--new marriage, new family--I still keep a picture of Nancy on my desk, and my second wife fully understands. It's the least I can do to keep that poor girl's memory alive. For all I know, it's the only afterlife she has.
There is another reason for this column, and that can be summed up in the title at the top of the essay: Seize the Day. I remember when another of our bike friends died a few years ago. Bob Shaw. Mountain bike race organizer and founder of the Redwood Empire Trails Assistance Group. Dead within a week from a variant of Mad Cow Disease. At the time, one of our mutual friends said, "Live well today, because nothing is promised."
I know this all too well. I am now into the fifth year of cancer survivorship myself. So far, my ailment hasn't caused me much trouble, except for a tedious round of MRIs and CT-scans and biopsies. So far, the greatest impact of my cancer has been to remind me of those words: nothing is promised. Cherish every moment. Seize that day with both hands and wring every drop of goodness and beauty out of it. When you're out for a ride and you notice a new road and wonder where it goes, don't assume you can come back later and explore it. Do it now. Never leave home in the morning with a cross word still hanging in the air. Smooth out the wrinkles of rancor and discord. Recall why it is that you love those special people in your life. Let them know, with humor and humility, that you still do love them. And always be alive to the joy and astonishing wonder that animates our world. Live your life as if you are living it by proxy for all of those other fine folks who have gone over to the other side ahead of us.
Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net