If you spend enough time in my tiny, bike-crazy town in eastern Pennsylvania, sooner or later you’ll meet Army Jay.

He’s six-foot-one with long hair and a scraggly beard, and a missing pair of front teeth. He dresses in camouflage. He smokes cigarettes. He sometimes carries a Viking blowing horn on rides. He is usually actively drinking a beer.

When you first meet him, you probably wouldn’t understand that Jay is as central to our hardcore cycling community as the shiny-legged roadies who ride six days a week, or the mountain bikers in their pads and baggies.

But if someone is having a good time on bicycles, Army Jay will be there. He builds the bonfire every week at our Thursday night cyclocross series. He hands out PBRs at our local enduro, then rides the singletrack descent on his loaded touring bike. He good-naturedly heckles ’cross racers while sporting his military fatigues and tin pot helmet—Jay served as Army infantry in the Gulf War—and wielding a blow-up pickle.

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Trevor Raab

Jay lost his driver’s license years ago. So he rides everywhere—in 90-degree heat or after a snowstorm. He’s 48 now. He could probably own a car again, but he’d rather get from one place to another on his own power. He lives about nine miles away, and fully loads his well-loved (and well-maintained) steel Surly Disc Trucker for his trips into town. If it’s too late to ride home after an event, he’ll ride into the park or a friend’s backyard and set up camp. In the winter, he’ll sometimes camp on the local ’cross course in the snow, just to prove to himself that he can still do it.

One of my favorite Army Jay stories is about the first time he did 2-5-10, our annual dumb-idea century, which tackles ten 10-mile laps of the three steepest hills in town for over 14,000 feet of climbing. It was July. The heat was oppressive. Jay wore combat boots and cargo pants. He rode a bike with a rack on it and smoked a cigarette after every lap. This amazed Olympic track racer Bobby Lea, who recalls passing Jay on course throughout the day. Each time they saw him, says Bobby (who now works at BICYCLING), Jay looked the same: “completely disheveled and so stinkin’ happy.” The afterparty had been going on for hours when Jay turned up. “We had no idea he was still out there riding his laps,” Bobby says.

Jay likes to compete, in his own way. “I have a number and I’m riding my bike while a race is going on,” he explains. He’s often DFL, or close to it. “I’m not a pro, I’m not big in the industry, I don’t have big aspirations.”

Jay doesn’t ask a lot out of cycling. He loves the freedom of it, the way it lifts his bad mood and helps with his anxiety, and the cool stuff his bike helps him see. The other day, it was an eagle that sat on a branch right next to him at a fishing spot he had ridden to. “You’d never see that in car,” he says.

All the good cycling communities have—or should have—beloved outliers like Jay: riders who ostensibly are doing everything wrong in terms of keeping up, getting better, and fitting in, yet who still achieve the best parts of what it means to be a cyclist. These riders remind us that you’re not one of us because you’re fast or you have the right bike or the right look or a silky pedal stroke, or because you started racing when you were 13 or you have a lot of followers on Instagram. You’re a cyclist because you ride, you really ride—whether it’s shitty or beautiful out, whether you’re first place or last, whether anyone is still watching or even knows you’re out there. And you’ll know you’re doing it right by the way it makes you feel: so stinkin’ happy.


Army Jay's Essential List of Bikepacking Gear
Surly Disc Trucker
Surly Disc Trucker
Learn More
Endura Singletrack Jacket II
Endura Singletrack Jacket II
Now 43% Off
Endura MT500 Men's Spray Cycling Pant Trouser II
Endura Endura MT500 Men's Spray Cycling Pant Trouser II
Topeak Master Blaster Road Frame Pump
Topeak Topeak Master Blaster Road Frame Pump
Big Agnes Insulated Air Core Ultra Sleeping Pad
Big Agnes Insulated Air Core Ultra Sleeping Pad
Now 20% Off

A bike with braze-ons. "So you can mount racks and bottle cages. I'm riding a Surly Disc Trucker. You can put wider tires on it. I've also taken the racks off and raced cyclocross on it."

Rain gear. "I have Endura's Singletrack Jacket II—the hood tucks away—and MT500 II waterproof pants. They have an elastic waisband and zippers around the cuffs so you can get them on over your boots."

Frame pump. "Frame pumps are cool because it's not like you're gonna run out of CO2 and you're not gonna be out there pumping all day with your minipump. I've had the Topeak Road Masterblaster for at least a year and a half, maybe two years. Possibly three."

Poncho or tarp. "If you have a poncho or a tarp with grommets, and some good cordage, you can make yourself a shelter. I don't bring a tent."

Air mattress. "In the Army, we used to have these air mattresses that were just big enough for you, and you'd blow them up in one go, and it'd give you a helluva head rush. If you can get a little air mattress like those old military-issue ones, it forms an air pocket of warmth, and if if rains, you're actually up above water."

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Gloria Liu

Gloria Liu is a freelance journalist in Golden, Colorado.