He used to be the headline attraction at the local Alpenrose Velodrome's Challenge. I didn't discover the velodrome until 2001; after Nothstein turned road. He was still good on the track, but no longer overwhelming. Two things bugged me. He carried himself like he was something special (except at one event; more later!) And he was considered so much more noble than the low-key, easy to talk to Stephan Foster who was widely considered to be doing steroids; this despite the widespread but never spoken knowledge that Nothstein was just as fueled, just on EPO, not steroids. The event that humbled even Marty Nothstein? For a run of years a young man used to come up from southern Oregon to show off his trials riding skills. (He had them in spades. Regular national champ.) Fun to watch him! Now in the beginning the elite trackies clearly thought little of this guy who rides a 1:1 gear and does kids stunts. He started getting respect when he demonstrated some moves none of those trackies were going to do in this lifetime or the next. Second time he came, at the close of his lunch-break show, he had Nothstein lie down on the apron. Made a big deal of sizing him up, rode a ways uptrack, turned around, built some speed and bunny hopped him, across, so the easy way. Selected anther hotshot and him lie beside Nothstein, then jumped them both. Kept doing this until he had a row of 19 bodies. No misses. Wasn't hard to see that all of those jumped riders, including Nothstein, were truly humbled. And that kid got real respect as soon as he showed up every year after that. Ben |