There always needs to be someone who gets the ball rolling. There always has to be that person who sticks with an idea and makes it happen. Hopefully you know who that person is where you live. Here in Michigan, that person is Paul Alman.
It was a simple idea in 1984: set up a criterium (Chapter 12 p. 143) course on four Sundays in April and let bike racers race. Let them get ready for the season. Use it to train young riders. No prize money, just a crack house for addicts like us.
It has become a springtime tradition. It's where riders and families re-connect after a winter in hibernation. It's where you test your fitness level against other racers. Sometimes you come to the Ann Arbor STS (spring training series) raging, and other times you come hoping to simply not get dropped. There are similar series elsewhere in the country, but this is not about the series but the person who has stood out there rain or snow or shine flipping the lap cards, ringing the bell, and orchestrating the whole thing. Yes, it takes a team, but there needs to be a leader.
25 years later, Paul is still the guy ringing the prime bell, counting the laps, handing out the primes, and deflecting the credit to everyone else.
There were some Sundays when Frankie Andreu would come home from the Spring Classics campaign fresh off a ride at Paris-Roubaix.
There were some Sundays when snow and cold chased the weak into the basement.
There were some Sundays that felt like the Tour de France.
And perhaps best of all there were a bunch of junior racers who were given the chance to try the racing world in a nurturing environment. Many of them are still in the sport today doing quite well.
All from a simple idea that someone continued to back up with action for 100 Sundays.
Well, he finally decided to pass the torch to someone else and go on to other pursuits. (His wife, Mary, will finally be able to do fun things on Sundays in April. And she'll get to take him along!) So we hung around after the race on Sunday, ate all of the Ann Arbor Velo Club's food, drank all of the Ann Arbor Velo Club's beverages, and saluted Paul. Here's a photo of him addressing and thanking the troops.

Paul, for those of you who are interested, is also the guy who gave me my first announcing job. Back in 1985, he let me set up a sound system and yammer for a couple of hours while the races were going on. The next year, he paid me $50 to do it.
And 17 years later, he was the first one to read my rough draft of Roadie (all 500 pages of it - really rough), and was the first to say it had potential. In fact, he might have been the only one to say that.
And he once gave me some of the best advice that I use to this day. "Never say no." When given a chance to do something, do it. That simple advice has lead to some great adventures, and has never landed me in jail.
So before he shuffles off to his other pursuits, I needed to thank him as publicly as this blog would allow.
As I said, hopefully you know who that person is where you live. Hopefully there's some of that in you.