In March 2009, on the first of two mandatory furloughs from Future Publishing, I flew to River Edge, New Jersey to interview long-distance bicyclist Freddie Hoffman. This was my second meeting — and second interview — with the church janitor famous for riding more than one million miles in his lifetime.
The first time we met was in Waterford, Wisconsin, sometime during the summer of 1996. I was working for Rivendell Bicycle Works at the Waterford Precision Cycles factory owned by Richard Schwinn and Marc Muller. Freddie hadn’t reached his millionth mile yet, but he was close. He stopped by the factory to get his broken chainstay repaired, so after phoning my boss Grant Petersen, I sat down and interviewed Freddie for the Rivendell Reader.
Nearly 13 years later, my path crossed with Freddie once again. I was living in Mountain View, California, three time zones away from the 51-year-old, and got the nod from Grant to interview Freddie for Rivendell Reader 42. I arrived at Freddie’s house via Virgin America and a rental car, and spent the next 14 hours catching up on his life.
Here’s the link: RivendellReader42_FreddieHoffman.
Man from Allouez 