By Scott Cutshall [LFoaB]

The Bicycle is a real, viable, affordable solution to many of the World's ills: oil, gas, gas+oil wars, mental [depression] and physical [everything from obesity to heart disease] issues, sprawl, the lack of community in our communities, road rage, pollution, the decline in small family-owned businesses while corporate "Big Box" stores thrive onward and endlessly.

...I am sincerely indebted to the simple Bicycle.

I started sensing something had gone afoul, seriously wrong, when I'd get I was made fun of as a pre-teen and then Teen. When I would see the Doctor for a routine check -up, and my mom would express concern about my increasing girth; or some o. That along with other events that served to dent, chink or bruise the armor of adolescent childhood. bBut, then havingthere was food offered to me as a kind of love/nutrient/nurture Band-Aid. And why not... Food is the drug of choice to soothe, welcome, celebrate and mourn the Human experience of Living.

But food also has (especially these days) a dark side- Everything from urban sprawl to the gas needed to get those goods to your local eatery. And then of course, you from home, in your car to get to that eatery too. The food itself- industrially raised/farmed animals, if not injected full of steroids or vaccines or chemicals to make 'em bigger, faster, lactate more, meatier. The ground water poisoned from feed lots or the methane gases produced from the animals blistering a hole through the Ozone. Many choices, most, if not all, bad. The more those corporations are supported through thoughtless on the road/on the run purchasing convenience/consumerism, the more they keep buildin' them up, everywhere... with seemingly no end in sight.

Getting bigger, I turned that golden age, 16 years old and had access to The Car. Bike, Goodbye (after all, it's a "Kid's Toy")... Hello, Car (after all, it's an adult's tool for "Real Change, Efficiency and Getting Stuff Done"). I got bigger still. Now I had access to anything, anytime I wanted it. If money was on me, craptacular food was in me [not to mention, The Car was doing the work of getting me around].

If you're reading this chances are you already know about, and perhaps, love bicycles. And that's good, great in fact. The real drag about my story is that most people who read it, well... it's like preaching to the choir because it gets circulated mostly among cycling circles. But maybe, just perhaps, someone,somewhere will find it, dig into it and see some light... maybe a smallish glimmer of something worth pondering

Finally, between the auto, the food, the lack of insight, and the complete devotion to Immediate Gratification (and hey, what American isn't traveling down that road to some variation on a similar theme? Fashion, Food, Electronics, Houses, Cars, Haircuts, Toys: both for the young & old alike, Books, Movies, Gossip, et al).

I eventually made my way to 330, and then 427 pounds. By this time it was 2002 and I had a wife and daughter. My wife, an RN, was worried about me and pretty much insisted that I consult with see a Bariatric Specialist about possibly having a major surgery to remove a quite large amount of stomach and intestine. I went, and was told without the surgery I was a dead man... and then I left.

I went back home and ate. Why not, if I was a "Dead Man" why not dig into some great Thai (lunch that day) and Vietnamese (dinner that night)? Why not celebrate my demise with the same stuff (food) that I was taught to celebrate all other notable events in this life we share? So I did.

I peaked, in November of 2005, at 501 pounds. Again, was told I was a Dead Man, but now with the qualifier: "with very little time left to live" (and of course, surgery would be the only answer). And then for some, unbeknownst to me reason, a switch got tripped in my head: come up with a very specific menu (something you can enjoy every single day from now on and until forever) and get back to something that you really loved as a kid: a bike. And that was it.

So on Thanksgiving Day, 2005, while cooking the standard American Thanksgiving Dinner for my girls and me, I looked at them and said, "Here's what I'm going to do, starting today." I outlined my new way of living, eating, riding. I expected stares, chinks and dents in my armor. Instead, they (nearly in unison) said "We're in too!" And that was that. I ate a couple ounces of breast meat from that turkey, some of the sides - what I'd prepared and some diet soda. I've never eaten any of those things again, ever. (You can read more about the details of my lifestyle change at: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/16782826.html)

I sit here writing this on a very windy day in Minneapolis, MN in July of 2008. 80 percent of my story resides in my memory. A memory of growing up in western Pennsylvania and then in the New York City area where I made my way, cut my teeth, as a professional Jazz Musician. While the current 20 percent is either unfolding or has unfolded since we relocated to Minnesota to ride our bikes, in a better cycling infrastructure/community, in June 2007. I have removed nearly 300 pounds of the gluttonous American Way of Living Life. I feel better in too many ways to even write about or list. And, oddly, I've learned a lot about how our society works (and doesn't work) with regard to change, marketing, information that is kept from us (the public) as a whole and that, in general, a dumbed down public is less likely to demand change. The more I dig inward, the more I understand about myself and the world I exist in.

We are moving to Portland, Oregon next... and then probably somewhere else that has lots of places left to ride Two-Wheeled Goodness, live & enjoy life and check things out. Maybe we'll bump into you along the way.

Keep Ridin'... Always

-Scott Cutshall [Large Fella on a Bike]

Scott Cutshall is a person with a fantastic wife and amazing daughter. Together the three of them call themselves "Team Ultra" while out riding at a blistering pace of -usually- 10 to 11mph. They also use assumed names while on these family rides: Scott is known as "Falcon", his wife is known as "Mephisto" and their daughter is "Black Death". This is a very secret team with an enormous agenda to eventually undermine all forms of organized cycling, poor choices in cycling clothing and eventually overtake the universe as they know it [Shhhhh, don't tell anyone please]. Also, Scott is still getting smaller, still being stopped for photos and the occasional autograph, writes at his blog, "Large Fella on a Bike", and has been helped out by some fantastic folks along the way: Bob Brown Cycles, Swobo, Xtracycle, Pedro's, Rivendell Cycle Works, Cars R Coffins, Shockspital and Bilenky Cycle Works [and some other folks who wish to remain nameless and faceless]... and all this happened because he decided to change everything about his life & get on a bike and ride. Imagine what you [or someone you know] can do too?