It’s raining in Copenhagen right now, so instead of riding, I’ll write about bikes.

“Let’s send it.”

I learned a lot at my first “job” at Northwest Mountain Bike. I learned that road bikes were not cool, only mountain bikes were cool. I learned that I was a grom. I learned that Nirvana and Pearl Jam was not nearly hard enough rock, and that music was supposed to sound like the band was comprised of solely rotting corpses. I learned that you should never ask to use the bathroom without buying something or you’d get “Slime Tubed”. I learned what being shot with a BB gun felt like. I learned that jokes did not necessarily need to be funny, they could also be very uncomfortable. I learned that you should NOT make fun of Jerry for being short or he will push your face to the concrete floor faster than gravity could and put his shoe on your head and tell you how things really are. And I learned that you “Don’t Sell Out to Trek.”

Trek killed all the cool brands. Trek destroyed Gary Fisher, and Trek destroyed Klein. Gary Fisher was the godfather of mountain biking, and Klein is like the Contax G2 of cycling, for those who are not 90’s bike savvy. There are pre- and post-Trek Kleins. Pre-Trek Klein’s are beautiful, rare, and often weird. When I met Aldo, he was riding a Pre-trek Klein.

Shit…nope…I just texted him to confirm that fact…his Klein is a Trek. Well, there goes my whole story-arc.

I met Aldo outside of Darcy’s on Rantzausgade, and he was riding a corporate-sell-out Klein. I was with my buddy Nikolaj about to head out for a ride when Aldo shows up with this chameleon painted bike (which I used to think was pre-Trek) and we got to talking. We talked about bikes, obviously.

Aldo is likely one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. Yes, I’m American, and yes, I like to use superlatives, but in this instance the superlative is correctly used. At some point not long after meeting Aldo he posted some Instagram stories of beautiful loaves of sourdough bread he was baking. I commented on their perfection and seemingly right away there was a loaf of bread knocking on my door. Turns out this was not out of the ordinary for Aldo, as you can see from the photos, when I asked to photograph him making focaccia at home, we went down to the street after it was ready, and he started sharing his creation with friends as they passed by.

Did you know that the little indentations in focaccia come from the fingers massaging the oil into the dough in the pan? Yeah, me neither. Well now I do.

Aldo was born and raised in Chile until he moved to Italy in 2012. Chilean mom and Sicilian dad. A few Junes ago, I was walking down the street in Florence and bumped into Aldo. Later that night we met for dinner with, both of our now ex-girlfriends. We had pizza and conversation for dinner. I remember that I did not know Aldo very well before that night but felt much closer to him after the plates had been cleared from the table.

Just the other day in Nordhavn, Aldo annoyingly told me that he wakes up happy every morning. “Since when?” I asked. “Since always” he replies. “How?!” I asked. I don’t remember his exact reply, but it was something ridiculously simply like “I just do.” Just that simple. He wakes up every morning and decides to “send it.”

Thanks, Aldo.