Catching Up (Almost) with the FJ's John Thomas
A brief audio interview with one of our best-loved contributors
John Thomas is unstoppable.
Over the last few years, he battled prostate cancer, COVID (more than a few times), a bike crash that punctured his lung, and probably a few other ailments he didn’t even bother to tell me about.
All the while, the 68-year-old kept himself busy writing (most guitar geeks know him as the author of the groundbreaking Kalamazoo Gals book, about the women who made “Banner” Gibson guitars during the war…though he has several other projects going at any one time), working as a law professor, playing music, and contributing to the Fretboard Journal.
For over a decade, he’s been a dear friend and one of our most fascinating contributors.
Here’s the other thing about John: He’s one heck of a cyclist.
That bike ride where he crashed? He hit a deer on a training ride preparing for a 2,700 bike ride called the Tour Divide, a mountain bike route that starts in Banff, Canada and goes all the way to Antelope Wells, New Mexico, right on the US/Mexico border. John is one of those guys whose Sunday rides routinely exceed 100 miles.
Having had to scrap his plans for a 2022 ride due to the accident, he was determined to bike it this year while he was still strong enough. We talked to him earlier this month on the FJ Podcast all about it. As I type, he’s somewhere in Idaho. All of his gear - his tent, his stove, his food, and water - is strapped to his Salsa Cutthroat gravel bike.
Before his start, I looked at a map of John’s route and tried to figure out the easiest way to meet up with him, if only for a day. Butte, Montana stood out. A straight shot down I-90 from Seattle, nine hours away. Ample lodging, easy to get to.
So the plan was hatched that I’d drive my bike to Butte, spend a night, ride the Tour Divide trail north to meet John, bump into him in Basin, Montana (40 miles away), and then we’d ride back to Butte together. I’m not a great cyclist, but John assured me I could pull it off.
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