Our last track is a skull. — “Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry,” by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison
The letter was returned, marked “Deceased.”
This is how my friend Michael Schenk stumbled across Bill Baughman’s final footprint in our lives, when one of his annual Schenk-family newsletters, sent via snail mail, bounced back from Bill’s last known address in Bibleburg.
Michael emailed me on Wednesday: “Bill Baughman passed away! Have you heard about this?”
No, I had not. And I immediately set out to learn the details.
Which … were not forthcoming.
No obituary in the Gazette. No other trail that I could backtrack via Google, DuckDuckGo, or Bing. Michael’s call to Bill’s former employer yielded only a vague reference to “health problems.”
Well, yeah. Sorta goes without saying, eh?
Bill was not always easy to catch, especially on the bicycle. But if true, this would be a breakaway unprecedented. We had always been able to find him again, somewhere. A bagel shop. A Mexican restaurant. At home, gaming, in his air-conditioned computer closet.
Herself and I last caught up with Bill in 2022, in Manitou Springs, during a celebration of life for another old velo-bro, John O’Neill. John, Bill, and his longtime friend Bill Simmons were among the O.D.s (Original Dogs) who joined me when I left Rainbow Racing to form Team Mad Dog Media-Dogs at Large Velo.
In those early days we trained a ton, barking Liggettisms at each other — suitcases of courage were opened, pedals danced upon or turned in anger, elastic snapped — on the Highway 115 rollers to Penrose and back; up Highway 24 through Manitou to Woodland Park and beyond; down to the racetrack south of Fountain, occasionally adding the dreaded Hanover Loop; or around the 1986 world-championships course at the Air Force Academy.
On race weekends we’d bunk three and four to a room in skeevy motels at Pagosa Springs, Durango, Crested Butte, and elsewhere. I was a popular roomie because I always packed my Krups espresso machine on road trips. The Bills proved extra popular with me after I broke a collarbone at Rage in the Sage; Simmons abandoned his own race to take charge of my bike, and Baughman drove me, my bike, and my truck back to B-burg.
Some three decades later, during our conversation at O’Neill’s sendoff, Bill seemed subdued, maybe even a wee bit sad, not at all his usual rollicking self.
His mother, ex-wife, and a son had all passed. He and Simmons had been out of touch. And he had been been hit by a car while riding his road bike, which snatched a knot in his fearlessness; he was avoiding both road and trail, and when he cycled at all he stuck to a few local bike paths. He drank only at home.
It seemed a stunning retreat by a renowned battler who, sweating tequila from a margarita marathon as the peloton thundered along, would turn a baleful eye on anyone who groused about the pace and growl, “Shut up and ride.”
Still, Bill looked good, as though he’d put on a few pounds. He’d always been thin as a frame pump. Holding his wheel during a group ride as he executed his famous “Marksheffel Plan” — an attack near the bottom of the long climb up the east-side road of that name — was like trying to draft a shark’s fin.
We talked about getting together again, the way people do when they reconnect, however briefly, to send some other old friend west. And after Herself and I got back to ’Burque I emailed him. He never replied.
How can someone just drop off the face of the earth with only the U.S. Postal Service taking the slightest bit of notice? I mean, sure, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” But you’d think Google might have the jump on them these days, especially since Jan. 20.
Facebook, the Pony Express of the AARP, was basically useless. The number I had for Bill Simmons was no longer in service. Cindy O’Neill, John’s widow, hadn’t heard the news until Herself passed it along.
And then I remembered: Amber Shaffer, who catered O’Neill’s farewell gathering, was not just a part of his Colorado Running Club crew — she was once a neighbor of Bill’s on the east side of B-burg, not far from the ancestral home of the O’Gradys on South Loring Circle. Ours really is a small world at times.
Late Friday afternoon I called Amber at Roman Villa Pizza; she said that yes, she had learned via text of Bill’s passing late last year, and … and that was all she knew. Fridays are busy in the restaurant racket, so I thanked her, promised to drop in for a meal next trip through town, and said goodbye.
Looks like Bill has dropped us all again, dancing on the pedals, the elastic snapped for good. I hope there was a frosty pitcher of margaritas waiting for him at the finish.
Let’s sing him off. This one goes out to all my friends who’ve died.
Mad Blog Media 
Well chosen, sir. Bill and I didn’t always sing from the same songbook — it was Bibleburg, after all, and both Bills were more conservative than I am — but on two wheels or three barstools we were comrades in arms.
I’m really sad to hear about your fine chum. I hate life because the years have to go by and everything changes and we lose touch with folks. Here’s to staying in touch a bit more. I owe a few phone calls and a real letter or two myself to some close friends. In the mean time here’s a toast of some fine whiskey to Bill.
Another excellent musical selection, and thank you. Warren was a fave of my patron saint, Hunter S. Thompson, and he showed some real class in the way he moved from this plane to the next.
Bill was a musician, too, but I’m damned if I can remember whose music he favored.
Patrick
So sorry to hear of Bill’s passing. Many fun and found memories of this lighting filled rides. I have a photo of the two of you taken at one of our Christmas shindigs, or maybe it was Thanksgiving, of the two of you, from back in the day. I’ll dig it up when I’m home from vacay.
Hugs to you and herself as the OD’s get fewer and fewer
All the best,
Michael Porter
It was a good crew we had, for sure. I lost track of a bunch of us, first when we moved to Weirdcliffe, and again when I got buried in work after our triumphant return to the B-burg. The Thursday rides out of Boulder Park were pretty much done and dusted by then, as I recall, and it was tough to make the weekend rides out of Acacia Park, because there was always something that needed doing for someone, and a freelancer lives in fear that the last dollar he earned will be the last dollar he ever earns.
So I’d ride by myself, or with Michael Schenk and Dennis Collard, as time permitted. Michael was a neighbor in the Patty Jewett Yacht & Gun Club Neighborhood and was forever turning up on my stoop in all manner of weather, yelling at me to come out and play, when I was buried in live updates of some bike race for the VeloNews website. When I quit racing in … 2004? … my outings became even less social, more like going to the gym, y’know? A routine.
Ten years later we were down here and that was that. One of the first fibs parents tell a military brat as they’re packing for a transfer to a new base is “It’s OK, don’t be so sad, you’ll see your friends again someday.” After a few new towns you quit looking over your shoulder to see where everyone is and how they’re doing.
Self-preservation, I guess. Must be how the troops keep moving forward. At least nobody was shooting at me.
Schenkenstein? Big Bill McBeeef? I remember those names from the way back in your writing. You know it’s coming, you even know it’s here now. But when friends check out it’s still a swift kick in the slats. Sobering too it is and a reminder to stop thinking about past/future and Just Be. Lost one of the best friends I’ll ever have recently and it looks like another is going down soon. Sigh….why the good ones?
I hear ye, Herb. It’s been a rough start to the new year, and not just because of the change of management in DeeCee.
First my man Jethro goes west. Then his mom, Lucy, follows him out the door. She was a delight, Lucy was, she and her old man Lawrence both. They always treated me as just another one of the family knuckleheads.
Next a blogger I’ve been following for ages, Kevin Drum, finally checks out after nearly a dozen years with multiple myeloma. His was a voice of sanity in the nuthouse, with cat pix every Friday. And he kept working until just a couple days before the end.
And now Big Bill McBeef shuffles off to absolutely no fanfare at all. I mean, shit and god damn, etc. I know he developed himself a whole new posse — they’re all over the ButtFace — but nobody seems to have taken note of his passing.
This is of course my pot calling their kettle black, since I hadn’t touched base with him in three years. One of my many character flaws. Was it nature or nurture? Does it even matter?
Herself was rolling her eyes about taking a phone call from someone the other day, a call she knew would run way long, and I sez to her I sez, “Talk to ’em while you still can.”
So sorry to hear about your old packmate, I remember the blogs from the days of the springs rides, showing up unannounced and demanding time to ride what great memories. Old fiends or friends from days of yore get lost in the everyday dross. I know the feeling of losing someone you know you need to reconnect with but somehow it gets put on the back burner. Just toast his memory with a Non-Alcohol Guinness, Shed a tear, say a prayer, and curse the fact that life is too damn short.
Thanks, John. Bill was one of those guys who always knew when the split was coming and managed to tack onto the lead group just as it happened. Man, he was sneaky that way.
If you were among the leaders you wouldn’t even notice him, since he weighed about 130 soaking wet and could hide behind just about anyone.
And if you were one of those who got caught out and tried to struggle back on, well, good luck drafting his narrow ass. That was gonna be a long day at the office.
“This one goes out to all my friends who’ve died.”
Amen, Patrick. That’s getting to be a longer and longer list for me, too, and I wonder some days when my own name will be on it.
That lack of information. Same thing happened when I tried to find out what happened to my college motorcycling buddy Bill Seligman, who had enough of upstate New York just about the time I was finishing up college. He packed it in and settled in down in Tucson. A lot of radio silence and dead ends. I finally found a link that said cancer had gotten him. I was surprised. Bill could drink us under the table back in college and still get on his motorcycle and ride home in one piece. He survived Vietnam and a motorcycle crash that would have killed most of us. We kidded him that he was sober that night–if he had been lifting a beer, that crash never woulda happened. And the damn C is what got him. But he lived a long life before the Grim Reaper knocked on his door. He was a dear friend when I needed a few of those.
Given I still lift a few, I’ll lift one to the memory of Bill Baughman.
Just got the news of Bill’s passing from Bill Simmons. Thank you for the reminders of way back then. I hadn’t seen Bill in decades. But I guess its been awhile since I’ve seen you, too.
Hey, Russell, long time indeed. We’ve been down here in Albuquerque for nearly 11 years now.
Bummer about Bill B., for sure. I tried tugging on Bill S.’s sleeve to get some details, but the number I had for him was no longer in service. Next time you two chat ask him to drop me a note, would you? Michael Schenk and I chat now and again, but I haven’t been back to town since John O’Neill’s memorial in Manitou.
Hope all’s well with you and yours. We’re ticking along just fine.
Years ago I always tried to keep up with Bill on rides in Colorado Springs but it just never worked out. He was super strong. Great attitude, fun and kind. It’s sad to hear this news. RIP Bill
Ed Bidinotto
I never did figure out where Bill kept all those watts stored in that skinny frame of his. We used to joke that he needed staples to keep his arm warmers up on those brisk early-spring road rides.
Bill was mighty hard to catch when he was in the mood to move. And he was an absolute master when it came to knowing when a large pack was about to split on the AFA ride and would latch onto the leaders just as they made their move. I’d usually be a few wheels back chatting with someone and would look up just in time to see Bill’s narrow caboose fading into the distance as the train left the station.
I have a ton of good memories of Billy B as we called him! Always trying to keep up with him, but it was always a struggle. He was such a fun character and had great energy, always a blast! I’m remembering riding on the Air Force Academy, when Kerma and i
I ran out of oomph at the end, so Billy B took turns pushing us on our bikes! And him bumping our tires, which scared us! I feel honored you used my picture in the article that was fun to put together. I’m no longer mountain biking but the next time I get on my e-bike it will be In honor of Billy B! 💜
Billy B was a live wire, for sure. We logged a lot of saddle time together Back in the Day®.
Several of us were self-employed and could do long road rides during business hours. We’d ride up to Woodland Park, down to the racetrack south of Fountain (maybe add the Hanover Loop), east to Peyton, up into the Black Forest or the AFA, south to Penrose, whatever. Run out of food and water? Hit a 7-Eleven and load up on Gatorade and junk food, get back after it.
Good times. He is missed. A belated thank-you for the photo, which depicts the Spirit of Billy B better than any of mine.