{"id":797081,"date":"2019-06-24T20:24:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T02:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/olympic-cyclist-scott-mercier-tells-the-tale-of-a-cross-country-ride-with-dad\/"},"modified":"2019-06-24T20:24:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T02:24:00","slug":"olympic-cyclist-scott-mercier-tells-the-tale-of-a-cross-country-ride-with-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/olympic-cyclist-scott-mercier-tells-the-tale-of-a-cross-country-ride-with-dad\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic cyclist Scott Mercier tells the tale of a cross-country ride with dad"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.1078431372549\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-367895-104\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/cyclingcolumn-atd-062119-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/cyclingcolumn-atd-062119-1.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Courtesy photo | Scott Mercier goes on a bike ride with his father.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>Scott Mercier goes on a bike ride with his father.<\/strong><br \/>Courtesy photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/cyclingcolumn-atd-062119-1.jpg\" alt=\"Scott Mercier goes on a bike ride with his father.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/cyclingcolumn-atd-062119-1-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/cyclingcolumn-atd-062119-1-1.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Courtesy photo | Scott Mercier goes on a bike ride with his father.\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>Scott Mercier goes on a bike ride with his father.<\/strong><br \/>Courtesy photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/cyclingcolumn-atd-062119-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"Scott Mercier goes on a bike ride with his father.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/cyclingcolumn-atd-062119-1-2-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/cyclingcolumn-atd-062119-1-2.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times | Scott Mercier\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>Scott Mercier<\/strong><br \/>Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/06\/cyclingcolumn-atd-062119-1-2.jpg\" alt=\"Scott Mercier\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/sports\/olympic-cyclist-scott-mercier-tells-the-tale-of-a-cross-country-ride-with-dad\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/sports\/olympic-cyclist-scott-mercier-tells-the-tale-of-a-cross-country-ride-with-dad\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">My relationship with my dad has always been complicated. I know that\u2019s not unusual. Maybe it\u2019s the mix of idolatry, fear, love and hate. I have two dads though, a Telluride dad and an L.A. dad, so it\u2019s doubly complicated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">My parents divorced when I was 4 and my sister and I moved from Los Angeles to Telluride with my mom. The distance made it difficult to get to know him. We would spend half of every summer with him in L.A., but he was working a lot, so we didn\u2019t see as much of him as we would have liked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In my teenaged years, I started going on rides with my dad when we\u2019d visit in the summer. My dad has one speed on the bike \u2014 100%. He hates to get dropped, so sometimes it\u2019s 110%. I was probably 16 the first time I dropped him. He was seething with anger, but also had some pride. I had a chip on my shoulder and like to torment him, so I thought it was funny.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Our relationship took a turn for the better when I graduated from high school in 1986. We decided to do a three-week ride from Telluride to Washington, D.C. It was an adventure, and we had 24 hours a day of uninterrupted time together. This was well before cell phones and the Internet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Riding a bike cross country gives an acute sense of the scale of the United States. Surprisingly, it is not all downhill from the Continental Divide to the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In Jefferson City, Missouri, an aggressive and impatient driver came too close and spent too much time on the horn. I gave him the middle finger salute and he stopped his truck on the off ramp while he debated whether to come back for us or not. My dad was about 50 yards behind and he and the guy were staring at one another. The driver eventually decided that it wasn\u2019t worth the effort, but that night my dad was livid. He said, \u201cScott, there is one rule. You don\u2019t do anything that will get my a** kicked!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Tighty-whities under your chamois is never a good idea, and as a result, my dad developed horrific saddle sores from the chafing with about 700 miles to go. To be honest, I\u2019m not sure how he was able to continue riding, but there are few people I know who are as tough as he is and he just stoically endured the pain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Somewhere in the mountains of Kentucky we were out of water and stopped at a small shop to ask if we could refill our bottles. The shopkeeper said the tap water was not good, but that he had a well and he asked his son to fill a jug for us. His son had graduated from high school that year just like I did. We sat on their front porch and talked for 20 or 30 minutes while our dads did the same.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">As we rode off, my eyes welled up with tears. Circumstances of birth had given us distinctly different life paths. I was headed to U.C. Berkeley while he was heading to the underground coal mines of Kentucky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">About 33 years ago, my dad and I were an anomaly in this part of the country, and in many ways, dad is still an anomaly. He\u2019s 80 now and has aches and pains everywhere, but he still rides his bike four or five days a week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">I hadn\u2019t ridden with him in years, but this past Fathers\u2019 Day weekend my son and I were visiting him in L.A. and we got to ride together. He\u2019d had eye surgery a few days before our visit and wasn\u2019t supposed to exercise for a week, but he wanted to ride with his son. He rides with flat bars and pedals, but is still just as stubborn as ever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">I don\u2019t know when my dad will ride off into the sunset. Hopefully it\u2019s years from now, but when he does, I\u2019ll always remember our time spent together in the saddle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Good riding!<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\">Scott Mercier represented Team USA at the 1992 Olympic Games and had a five-year professional career with Saturn Cycling and The U.S. Postal Services teams. He currently works as a senior financial adviser in Aspen and can be reached at <a href=\"mailto:scottmercier24@gmail.com\">scottmercier24@gmail.com<\/a>. This story is from Aspen Times.com.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/sports\/olympic-cyclist-scott-mercier-tells-the-tale-of-a-cross-country-ride-with-dad\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scott Mercier goes on a bike ride with his father.Courtesy photo Scott Mercier goes on a bike ride with his father.Courtesy photo Scott MercierAnna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times Show CaptionsHide Captions My relationship with my dad has always been complicated. I know that\u2019s not unusual. Maybe it\u2019s the mix of idolatry, fear, love and hate. I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-797081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 04:07:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}