How A Disaster Shaped My Future In Cycling

A post card depicting the aftermath of the 1968 tornado.

I sometimes get the question what it was that led me to being involved in cycling over the majority of my life. It is a good question, and the answer to it may be a lot different than you might have imagined it to be. 

May 15th, 1968. I was a seven year old elementary student at McKinley School in Charles City Iowa. My family had moved across town just three days prior and everything was new to me. Well, except my school. 

Instead of walking several blocks home, crossing busy Highway 14, and walking past the Southside Grocery store, I was now walking past the Texico station, crossing the Cedar River on a fairly new Brantingham Bridge, and walking along busy highway 18. 

It would be the last time I ever did that walk home from McKinley School. 

That very afternoon, at around 5:00pm, an EF-5 tornado ripped across Charles City, devastating homes, killing 13 people, and injuring hundreds more. Homes and businesses were destroyed. The city was never the same afterward. 

Of all the bad things which came out of this disaster, there were a few, a very few, good things. One of those was in regard to the youth, specifically the young boys, who lived then in Charles City. I was amongst a group of boys who scavenged bicycles which were strewn about the outskirts of town in woods, ditches, and wild areas. 

We would drag these bicycles back to our homes, tear them apart, and attempt to assemble them. Sometimes we'd make cross-bred contraptions bicycle designers had no intention for out of these free parts. 

Choppers were a big deal in the late 60's and early 70's, so we'd often make chopper bicycles out of the ones we'd dredge up from the flotsam and jetsam resulting from the tornado. It was part adventure, part mad scientist stuff which engaged us for days upon days. 

Over the Summers of 1968 through to around 1970 or 71, this scrapping of bicycles was going on. Of course, it eventually all went away, but the skills I gained in tire removal/installation, chain repair, and general knowledge of how a bicycle worked were all formed in those days of experimentation. 

I was able to maintain my single speed, coaster brake 20"er myself for the most part. My Dad had to step in a few times when I would break a rear axle doing jumps, but otherwise I was on my own for taking care of flats, new tires, and oiling the chain. 

And of course, a love of cycling and for bicyles in general was kindled then. It was the vehicle which took me around the city to witness the destruction of the "Charles City Tornado". Then other adventures came along. Eventually I outgrew the 20"er and was gifted a single speed Huffy lightweight coaster brake 26" x 1 3/8th" wheeled bike which I promptly tore the fenders off of and used as my city commuter and single track bike in the late 70's. 

McKinley School grounds, Brantingham Bridge

Of course, I left cycling for other worldly pursuits in my 20's, but it never went away completely. By the time I was in my late 20's I had purchased a mountain bike, started riding single track, and by 1993 circumstances led me to becoming a bicycle mechanic. 

Since then cycling has been pretty much at the forefront of my life. All due, in part, to a wicked, unfortunate natural disaster in the late 1960's. 

The anniversary date for the Charles City Tornado is tomorrow, May 15th. I will quietly mark the day. I will recall the scenes I saw with my own eyes and the screaming sirens I heard all night long that night in 1968 will replay in my mind again. I know most of you will have an ordinary day, but you all probably have a memory like this as well, so I am willing to bet some of you readers understand where I am coming from. 

So, if you've ever wondered what my start in cycling was, now you know.