jacktheriepe “Riding With Riepe” By Jack Riepe #116117


This month’s column is an oral history of “Riding With Riepe” as told by Michael Cantwell, one of the original “Secret K Bike Club” riders. Mr. Cantwell has known Jack Riepe for 18 years and has studied Riepe’s life philosophy for both loopholes and weak spots.


I WAS RIDING


with Riepe before he was famous, or at


least famous for the peculiar things he does that makes people talk about him. There are those who believe he takes chances. He occa- sionally does: getting into imaginative marriages, lighting up maduro cigars on first dates, drinking rye whiskey that will take the tint off a locomotive, or wind- ing out a K 75 in a spring mist on an interstate. And there are times when he’s done all four within an hour of each other. Those are the days when the best stories get spun about him. I met Jack in the


Adirondacks during the aftermath of an ice storm. It was February of 1998. The mercury was holding at a steady 32 degrees throughout a freak drizzle that lasted seven days and which covered thou- sands of square miles. From Montreal to Burlington (Vermont), from the Adirondacks to Albany, millions of trees and hundreds of miles of wire came crashing down. The nights were filled with the sound of anguished timber. Every road was choked with


92 BMW OWNERS NEWS December 2016


fallen trees, snarled with wires and draped by power poles bent at crazy angles. One by one, people made their way into


town, where committees were forming to staff shelters, to gather firewood, to search


the swing shift at the senior shelter, keep- ing the wood-burning furnace stoked and preventing anyone from heading outside. It was the first time I ever saw him with a serious look on his face. Even then I knew those donuts were in trouble. Leaders are drawn to a crisis. Riepe was drawn to heat, coffee and donuts. It would be three weeks


before the power com- pany got to us. Five more days before the National Guard arrived. But guys were running snowmo- biles over the mountain and on the logging trails. “Day Three” saw loads of milk and bread getting in from Saranac Lake this way. A guy on a sled tossed a bundle of papers to the crowd. It was the little Lake Placid Daily, and the crowd cheered. I found Riepe standing


for the elderly up in the mountains, and to keep everybody warm and fed. No one told these folks what to do. No one had to. These were North Country people. There was no panic and no anticipation of out- side help. Everyone knew that there were hundreds of towns like ours, all facing the same issues. We were on our own. I first saw Jack in the emergency meet-


ing. He was three seats from the stove... Two seats from the coffee...And one seat from the donuts. He volunteered to work


by the side of the road, staring at a tangle of wires. “Do you know anything about phone


lines?” he asked. I didn’t... But he was undeterred. “You’re a skinny little weasel,” Riepe


observed. “Do you think you could climb up that pole and connect one of these?” He gestured to a wire running along the ground back to his cabin on the hill. Riepe didn’t actually say “weasel” but something that rhymed with “buck.” And when I


In the words of Michael Cantwell


lifestyle


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108