Campocat keeps on rolling, this time bringing us the pied piper of Central Park, York.

Mr. Avalo York is an all around good guy. I have known him since 1983 I guess, when we all rode around the park on track bikes: York, Crockett, Gus, Janie, Barbara, Miss Sara, Carl, Chuggy, Mike, Angel, and many others that have all but disappeared from the park. Mr. York had a nickname then, as we all did, that only a special few know. He rode for Toga for a while, but I’ll let him talk about that. Mr. York is a wealth of knowledge and history, and his methods have made champions. The Central Park scene has morphed over the years, and Mr. York has become a coach, and he leads the afternoon training ride. People with a keen nose for cycling expertise are attracted to this training ride because of Mr. York’s reputation as a trainer and rider.

Also, the friendships he has acquired over the years with many riders that race currently, or raced in the past is remarkable. Big Mike said it best at a dinner recently: “When York says be there for dinner, you are there!” His workouts contain a mixture of both new and old school riders. The boathouse bench was the spot in the day usually to meet and joke and on Saturday or maybe Sunday we would ride over the bridge. York would lead the group until everyone was hammered off the back.

I remember one time a woman made it to the Rockland climb. There was only Marcus, York, Frenchy, me, and the woman. I started to fall off the back and was pissed the woman was still hanging on. It turned out to be Ann Marie Miller, or The Lung as she is lovingly known. That is the measuring stick we just about all started with, a ride with the York monster. When you are in races constantly getting close to teammates is hard because you never have a chance to talk off the bike. You never quite know much about them, and some most likely could care less for that matter. York has been, to me and many others, someone that has taken an interest in knowing who we are, and how things are going. I can talk things over with him and laugh, joke, and be human. He is a link to a family of riders all but gone now in Central Park. How much does this sport need people like York? I can go to California, Boston, Georgia, Florida, Seattle, wherever, and meet very nice riders, but to come home and know that York will be in the park on a warm afternoon and I can ride hard, and joke, and discuss races with him means a lot to me. I’ll let him explain.

Enjoy, Campocat

York and Campocat set the pace.

JC Yo dude. When did you start racing? Did you grow up like I did on the bike? What was your first bike like, and when did you first see a multi speed bike?

AY I started racing in 1976. It was sort of by coincidence, though I certainly would have found bike racing regardless. I got a Fregius track bike from a friend of mine when I was around sixteen years old. I used to ride this bike all over the city with my brother and another friend. We used to ride until late in the evenings, or should I say early in the morning. Once someone told us that there was a bike track in Queens, we decided to go and find it on one of those late evenings, and we did. Needless to say, it was Kissena.

Well, on one of those mornings on our way back home from the track, we decided to ride through Central Park, and what do you know, there was bike race about to start. That’s how I (we) discovered the CRCA and bike racing. I joined some weeks later, and that was the beginning of my racing/cycling. Yeah, I did grow up riding, but just kid stuff, around the block. My first bike was a stingray, you know, the banana seat and all that that went with it. I’m not sure as to when I saw my first road or racing bike, but that must have been years back when there were just a few around, French or Italian.

JC What about the old bunch? I had such a crush on Sharon, dude you have no idea. Didn’t we laugh, I have not laughed so hard since, with the crazy banter at the bench. If there were 500 people in the CRCA and another 300 in the NYCC at least 100 had to come by the bench on any given day. Tell us how Lenny talked you into joining Toga? Were you on other early teams like Lotus, Chemical Bank?

AY The old bunch…man you want me to go into the archives. If I were to start trying to name half of some of the guys I knew that rode back then, I’ll be at this computer until I’m Lou Maltese’s age. I joined Toga because I was always in Toga and I knew Lenny rather well. At that time, Toga was on 14th street on Avenue A, or was it B? One of my best friends worked at Toga at the time, so I made it my interest to go there. Besides, Toga was the only bike shop in the city that had any interest in bike racing.

Lenny’s first cycling team was actually called the ‘Nomads’. When I first started racing for Lenny in 1979, his team was called the ‘Toga the Tempo Thunderbolts’. As you probably already know, I started out as most of us have racing in the CRCA. From there I went to the Harlem Cycling Team with none other than Butch Oliver Martin. If that name is unfamiliar to you, then you haven’t been around, just ask John Eustice. After racing with them for about a year, I joined Toga. I went on to race for Team Brooklyn as well. That was for Pete Esposito at Bay Ridge Bicycle World.

JC I know you didn’t like to wake up at 5am for those races but you did the championship in New Palz didn’t you?

@##=#<2,L>@##=#AY Yah, I did race at New Palz. I was always riding so I thought I would just go up to this race, so I did. I went up there with Alan Resnick. I believe that was in 1996. I had officially stopped racing in 1981. I just became too tired of racing all the time and traveling all over the east coast. And every weekend became dreadful, resembling the life of Sisyphus. There wasn’t any fun left in it, for me at least.

JC Talk about your travels to Europe, Japan and other hot spots. Also talk about the old 7pm ride and Jimmy B and Crockett kicking butt on his track bike in the pack ride.

AY Yah, I used to take my bike to Europe with me, but by then, racing was well out of my system. I used to ride sometimes with some of the cyclist there in that area in the afternoon. I had a friend who used to race on the Swedish national team. She lived not too far from where I was staying so that was rather convenient for me. Most of the time I would ride in the mornings alone, but I found it quite pleasant and enjoyable. I was already in the south and I would ride still farther south. I was in the third largest city in Sweden called Malmo. I would leave the city and head down through lots of small towns to the open rural fields. I would sometimes ride as far as the land would take me, until I ended along the coast of Trelleborg. It was lovely, peaceful and exciting. I can remember the towns I use to ride through, on rare occasions I would cross paths with other cyclists and when I did they were always going in the opposite direction. I did used to meet and ride with this one rider when I was up in Stockholm. I was up there visiting this girl whom I met in New York through her sister. I don’t know what ever came of them, perhaps the sister that I knew went back home.

Very few of my friends in Sweden knew I had a bike and couldn’t imagine that I used to race one. When I was there in the winter, I would take the boat over to Copenhagen and go to the six-day races there. That was a lot of fun. There’s noting like it here. You’ll have to experience that for yourself if you have an interest in track racing. The six-day circuit travels through a lot of the major cities in Europe, so you don’t have to go to Denmark to see it. I did a lot of riding in Denmark as well. The Danes love to cycle. You find women riding in the snow with two kids on the bike and groceries hanging from the handle bars, and that’s pretty much the norm. When the six-day comes to Copenhagen, people will be excited for the whole week up until the day it begins. I remember the first time I went. I was with my friend Paula Wester, the girl who raced on the Swedish national team. I was so amazed. I felt like a child at the circus. Perhaps, one day I will go see another six-day race just for the fun of it.

JC Isn’t it great that you started a lot champions like Marie De Rosa, Ann Marie Miller, and such. Also, George is a monster again, what has gotten into him and why doesn’t he come to the track?

AY Ann Marie Miller and Marie De Rosa were riding for sometime before I met them. I do ride and help De Rosa as we are rather close friends. Her success certainly goes to her hard work which has little to do with me. We do ride in the park together and on occasions will venture over the G.W.B. Most people don’t know this because I don’t talk about it, but I use to take Nelson Vails upstate mainly on behalf of Fred Mengoni. Nelson was and still is a rather good friend of mine and we do still stay in touch and ride together when he’s in town.

JC Back in the day everything was steel, which really was galvanized aluminum with 2% iron. As a carpenter steel means tempered hard as diamond stuff, while what they called Columbus tubing was soft, heavy, and lasted 6 or 7 years an rotted at the bottom bracket because everyone used larger gears than they need too. Shifting was an art not too many people learned. You cranked up the hill in the biggest gear you could push. Today with automatic shifting people have become more spinners of sorts. Still ,the graduated pace line workout is something, unless you are a paid professional, no one has the patience to do. How come it is so easy for you to achieve this with such ease?

@##=#<3,r>@##=#AY I’m not sure if this question is an emphatic one or one general. But, I’ll respond as if it’s one in general. Racing and or training is always about patience. And yes, I do agree, lots of people don’t seem to have the patience to get it right. There aren’t any magic tricks to get you there. If you want to be a bike racer, do as Eddy Merckx said — ride your bike. Everyone wants to be a champion overnight and wants a quick fix or gimmick to make oneself become other or different, hence better. If someone wants to be good at something, it will take time. Time is relative, but it really is the answer. Lots of professional cyclist will tell you that it takes about 12 years to become truly successful. I don’t think any of us should think in those terms because we are not professional cyclists and no one is paying us to do this day and night. But, if we are interested in becoming better riders, we should do as the professionals do. Make it as easy as possible, that is, spend time doing what matters. Ride and train as if you were a Taoist, take the path of least resistance, in essence, don’t struggle with it, enjoy it.

JC The bikes today are lighter than ever; where is it going, a one pound bike? I can’t stand the mountain bike triangle or compact crap. It doesn’t steer properly and the rear wheel hops around too much and what is with that seat post? It reminds me of when I was a kid and my father got me a 24″ bike as my first bike. I soon grew out of it and he was too cheap to get me another. His solution was a long seat post. I hated that bike. Do you think this is a trend or does it have merit?

AY Some of it does have merit, but remember marketing come first. If you want to sell something, have something new or different. In the cycling world, the weight of one’s bike seems to be the paramount issue. Does it matter? I don’t think so. Most lay cyclist around here would prefer to spend money on the bike rather than time on it. Which will bring the most return in regards to performance?

JC How can I get used to time trial bars? That is the most painful position devised and I can’t generate any power in that position, the aero versus power thing I can’t seem to work out. It is funny because I started as a kilo man and now I’m known as a points racer and sprinter. Go figure.

AY John, I love this question—how can I get used to time-trial bars? There’s a lot I can say, but the simplest would be to say, how do you get used to a new pair of shoes? Technically speaking, if you are not used to them are not comfortable using them, more than likely you need to work on your position. And in general, If you’re going to spend lots of money on this stuff, at least spend sometime making some adjustments so that your bike will fit you as best as possible. Lots of times riders find it difficult to perform simply because they just haven’t made some small adjustments.

JC This one is for you York. It is a pleasure as always, let the readers know what is happening and the changes you see happening and where they can contact you for a good ass whoopin’, I mean coaching.

AY Ass whoopin’s are free – Chris Griffin and I hand them out all the time. I see that cycling is the same. It’s the attitude of the cyclist that has changed. Most riders or racers pretty much have the same objectives – to do as well as possible. The question that may be put to use is, what are the attitudes of some of the riders to achieve that objective? I believe that because there is so much information out there that’s so easy to obtain, that must have cyclists thinking that they can achieve their objectives alone by getting this information, or collectively sharing this information. I think the question is how we use the information that we get. Do we know what it means? Do we know how to use it? When Eddy Merckx talked about spinning, most cyclists did not have any idea what he was talking about. I see lots of riders out in the park spinning stupidly as if it’s going to do something for them. The concept has been diluted. That’s just one example of many things I would like to say.

York and Chris Griffin (green helmet) whoopin’ ass.

John, I’m getting a bit tired, we’ll speak and I can write more whenever you would like me to.

York

JC Yo dude this is great. Thank you sir, I know we are all appreciative of you skill and help in our long hours of training, day after dreary day. Suddenly I’m depressed. I wish I was Mr Legstrong – seven tour wins under my belt – rock star girlfriend to buy me a pimped 67′ GTO – an Orange County custom chopper. Then all I would have to do is make personal appearances. No, I don’t think so, I quite like being invisible… the cat