In the afternoon of July 16, 1983, I was in the best condition of my life, riding my bicycle 25 - 50 miles a day, majoring in Biology at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC).

On this Saturday I was tied onto a 165 foot climbing rope, lead climbing Washington Column, in Yosemite Valley, to celebrate my 28th birthday. The summer before, in 1982 my brother and I had run from Tuolumne Meadows to Yosemite Valley in one day. I was remembering that intense experience. We had covered a distance of almost 30 miles (29.9 miles) in eleven hours. Earlier in the summer of 1982 I had taken Organic chemistry 8B and scored 187 out 195 on the final. I was used to hard work. I knew the benefits and the rewards.

Lisa had said nothing about either of those accomplishments. My relationship with her was bothering me a lot at that time. Lisa was a humanities major (at UCSC also) while I was majoring in Biology with the intent of declaring a major in Biochemistry in the fall of 1983. She couldn’t understand why I was studying all the time. I couldn’t understand why she had so much free time, why she never studied. My brother wanted me to go into medical school like he had done, but I was having doubts. The thought of being a doctor and being around misery and death did not entice me. Granted there was the flip side too: The people I saved from endless misery, although I wasn’t feeling particularly enamored with the idea of being a doctor.

Back to Lisa. She felt threatened by my friends and verbally attacked them. I had grown tired of her acting mean and spiteful toward them, particularly the women. Imagine my surprise when I get home one day and Jana told me that Lisa had come by and apologized to her for being shitty and mean. I had gotten frustrated with trying to talk to Lisa about her attitude and the way she came across to my friends. I didn’t think she heard anything I was saying.

Lisa refused to discuss her behavior, how she felt about my expectations, why she felt threatened - anything. Instead she chose to attack me for wanting to be around people that I had something in common with. I was amazed; she had heard me after all. She was trying to change, but I was not exactly hopeful. Our relationship had reached a point where something had to give.

At the beginning of July I told her, I was tired of our relationship, wanted a break and I did not want to see her anymore. I went into how unhappy I was about the way she treated my friends and that I had realized it wasn’t going to change so I wanted to end our relationship.

At the time I was working at McHenry Library (at UCSC), living near the yacht harbor and riding my bicycle to work each day. I was planning to ride the bicycle leg of a triathlon that I was going to enter with my friend, Spencer, in August. In preparation for the coming triathlon I rode some really intense bike rides several times a week to get in shape.

I would ride for about four hours, usually in the mountains. I liked to stand on the pedals and climb. In the spring of 1983 I rode up Alba Road with a friend. That is the most serious uphill I have ever ridden. We went from about 500 feet to 2500 feet in four miles. About 1/3 of the way up Roland fell over. The uphill was too much so he pulled his right foot out of the toe clips, the bike stopped and went over to the left. He was in attack position, raised out of the saddle, body leaned forward, but he was lying on his side in the road.

I rode around him in a circle as Roland sat up then stood. He got back his bike and we started climbing again. I was careful never to ride into the setting sun. I did not want a driver with a dirty windshield taking me out. Cell phones had not been invented yet, so drivers, not paying attention to driving their car and the environment around them, was not a concern of mine. There was about a five hundred foot elevation gain to get to McHenry library and I charged up it everyday I had to go to work.

Nobody could out ride me. I caught and passed everyone I came upon and no one ever caught up to me. On my days off I would make a sandwich and go on some crazy bike ride, one with lots of hills and few cars. Sometimes I went up the coast to Ano Nuevo, but Highway 1 was heavily traveled, was narrow in a few places and the wind could be a real drag.

Dogs could make bike riding interesting. If I was familiar with the route, I knew where the dogs were lurking. I would stop and gravel up (collect throwing stones) so that when the dogs charged out at me I would have some defense. If I was on a road I was unfamiliar with and dogs came charging after me, I would crank down on the pedals as hard as I could and beat at them with my air pump. This made for some interesting rides when they surprised me as I was going up a hill and could not remove a hand from the handlebars.