About

Hi.  I’m Kit.  So you want to know more about me?  Well, the subtitle of this blog is “Cycling, Christianity and Fatherhood meet.”  So that’s the best way to introduce myself.

Cycling

In 2004, I weighed 230 pounds, felt uncomfortable in my own skin and constantly had doctors telling me my blood pressure was too high.  I decided I needed to get in shape.  I started with the South Beach Diet and doing a little running.  The former worked really well, the latter not so well.  I struggled to run for more than a quarter of a mile without developing shin splints and getting horrendously bored.  So I went to Penn Cycle in Woodbury, MN and bought a clearance Gary Fisher Wahoo.  My life changed immediately.  I started riding all the time — on the road, on the trails, to work, to the store.  The defining moment was going to the newly created trails at Salem Hills and riding with the president of MORC.  The joy of being on the trail and the camaraderie of fellow cyclists (as opposed to the Jeepers I had been off-roading with) resonated with me at a fundamental level.  Within a year, I wasn’t so much a guy with a bike anymore; I was a cyclist.  The insanity has progressed from there.  After moving from the Twin Cities, I raced more, commuted by bike more and started actually training.  Now it’s 2011.  I ride with the Red Jacket Cycling Team, am a member of Team Twin Six and am the defending U.P. State Cyclocross Champion (Men’s class B).  It’s not safe to say cycling defines who I am, but it comes close.

Christianity

Part of the reason I will not claim that cycling defines who I am is because I am first and foremost a redeemed sinner and a co-heir with Christ.  In 1996, I met the young lady who would eventually become my wife.  She had been a Christian as long as she could remember and she showed me a different kind of faith than what I had grown up with in the Lutheran church.  God wasn’t just a faraway king, but was a personal Redeemer that wanted a relationship with me.  I can’t point to a specific day or time when I repented and believed, but within a year I would consider myself a born-again believer.  I confirmed my faith with a believer’s baptism in December 2001, although I still hold to the infant baptism I received to be my “true” baptism.  Some 15 years later, I am a member at Bethany Baptist Church in Dollar Bay, where am very active in a variety of activities.  I have worn a Livestrong wristband since 2004, both in support of the Lance Armstrong Foundation (and it’s eponymous founder) but also to remind me of my favorite verse:

Haven’t I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Fatherhood

After some struggles, the Lord blessed my wife and me with three great kids.  As they grow and mature, we are doing our best to fulfill the Biblical mandate to train them up in the discipline of the Lord so that they might live Godly lives.  I strive to be an example and to try to treat these three gifts with God with the appropriate gravity.  Before I ride my bike, I play with my kids.  I am very happy with this arrangement and wouldn’t change it for anything.

There’s more to me than just that.  Who could describe their life on a single page of a blog?  But now you know enough to figure out where I’m coming from.  So go back and read the good stuff!