Mike Olson proprietor of Olson’s Bicycles has been more than a businessman when it comes to cycling. He is an enthusiastic supporter of anyone who wants to ride a bicycle down the street, through the country, over a new single-track trail or race for 41 hours straight. In fact, Mike introduced my husband and me to other cycling enthusiasts in the Forest Grove area. For the first time, apart from each one of us having a really good friend and riding partner during college, we now have had riding companions other than each other.
While I have always enjoyed riding a bike and thought it an especially great way to get where I wanted or needed to go, I really hit the jackpot when I met Hugh. The summer after I met him, Hugh did his first long race. His neighbor Craig, who loved to call Hugh “Huge” with a deep resounding bellow and gave a hooting grunt along with a claw-hook arm signal as a greeting whenever their paths crossed, invited Hugh to ride the Cannonball 300 with him and a couple of friends.
It was 1988 or 89 and Hugh had his new O’Brien from Gregg’s Greenlake Cycles. He’d been riding a lot since returning from a season on the Bering Sea. One day he rode up Snoqualmie Pass and back (~120 miles) enduring 5 flats, when I made him go on a picnic with his housemates and me. I didn’t have a clue what kind of riding the guy was really into. Anyway, Craig informs Hugh of the midnight start for their 300-mile Cannonball ride to the Starlight Inn in Spokane.
Departing from the front porch I was there too driving Hugh’s 1970 Bronco. While trying to keep the lights shining for my rider’s benefit and while trying to keep him safe, someone pulled around and ran Hugh into the curb and off his bike in the Arboretum. The chain rings on what is now my bike, still bare the scars. Somewhere out of the city and early on the limb up Snoqualmie, Craig and his friends pull into a diner for just after midnight breakfast. Not interested in eating, Hugh waits for them in the Bronco. An hour later they’re rolling again, but when Hugh gets a flat a few miles down the road they kept riding.
At that moment the Cannonball ceased being a ride and became a race. I don’t remember if any of those guys even made it to the Starlight Inn on their bikes, but I know Hugh did. Way before even the ones who got sick and stopped riding did. At the finish line, we learned that the Cannonball actually had an official start time and place. The next year Hugh was there and so was his smiling girlfriend.
The Cannonball 300 led to racing S2S (Seattle to Spokane over highway 2), and the Highline Hammer which really was a group ride through Glacier National Park and all of its passes. Back then it was bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, fruit, candy, salami and cheese, soda and more. Yes, salami, really, we always had it, but Hugh never felt like eating it. Hugh took a hiatus from those long rides/races in 1992 or 93. But then the year Hugh’s career as a crab fisher ended due to his hand being crushed by a Thanksgiving turkey size piece of ice while trying to keep the boat afloat in a sever winter storm, he worked through three surgeries and physical therapy by riding the trainer and getting out on his already old Trek 6000 OCLV Carbon fiber bike. He did S2S that year right after spending a week as a camp counselor and a month after his last surgery. That was 1999 and that was it. His youthful dreams of doing RAAM or even qualifying faded away. We moved to Cornelius in 2002 so Hugh could train as a Physician Assistant at Pacific University and soon met Mike Olson. After graduation Hugh decided it was time to do S2S again and Mike came along providing more skilled support. With his enthusiasm for cycling he also kindled the fire for more ultra marathon racing in Hugh.
Thanks to Mike Olson we know and love what has been the 540 miles of The Race Across Oregon, The Ring of Fire, The Furnace Creek 508 and are aware of so much more, like HAMMER NUTRITION.
No more salami, its Perpetuem all the way. We’ve also learned Hammer Nutrition has what we need for all our cycling activities. Thanks to Hammer, everyone riding the Cross Crusade cyclo cross series this year who affiliates with Olson’s Bicycles was invited to receive “Hammer Racing kits” (jerseys, shorts, gloves and socks). While we don’t have team meetings, group rides or dues, we support one another and our friends on and off the course. In honor and gratitude to Olson’s Bicycles and Hammer Nutrition you’ll usually see us listed under the team name “Olson’s Hammer.”
