Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

In Los Angeles co uld it have happened, an d only to a guy like Bob Gill : Flamboyant, da red evil, p araly zed from the waist do wn and still making waves. So yo u say. Co u ldn 't happen to you, right? Sorry, buddy - it b egin s to happen every time th at a unch of guy s get together in a garage with a few beers to build som ethi ng - some t hing that might so me day be wort h m oney. But what ha ppened to Bob Gill, at th e end o f hi s 7,800-mi le "Ride fo r Independence," h as to be one of th e mo st bizarre variatio ns of th e "frien ds tu rned enem ies over m on ey" syndrome on record. A wee k later, with some of the moment's emot io ns growing cold, it still read s like th e script of a TV drama. Day One - an emotional roller-coaster We had known at CN tha t Bob was due to co mp let e his cross coun try ride o n or about August 4. He had left St . Petersburg, Flo rida early in J uly, ridin g a specially-built Kawasaki 900/sid ecar o utfi t cal led th e " Para-Pu tt " . It was a rig only a m an with lim p, usel ess legs could app reciate : handsh ift, o ne -leve r unified three-wheel brakin g, an op en-b ac ked sid ecar that allowed Bob to load his wheelchair , mo unt and ride without aid . For a man wh o has been told "forget yo ur past life, it' s over" the machine is a dream come true . And he had ridden it 7,800 mil es, 2, 500 o f them in driving rain, to city after city, t rying to generate supp o rt for th e National Par aplegia Foundation, hoping so me day fo r a cure for spinal c o r d injury. He 'd go t te n keys t o cities, test imo ni als fro m m ay ors, and m ost o f all , pledges of supp ort. His co ns tan t mes sage - the U.S . Go vernme n t allot ted barely $1 00,000 a year for th is kind of spi na l injury resear ch; a nd a mil lion do llars is needed. No w the ride was ove rt -and I'd go tten a call to attend a press co n ference in Holl y wo od 's Holiday Inn to he ar ab out Bob's rid e and th e waves it was m akin g. The PR typ es who tipped me gave me t he wr ong hotel name, so I was late. T hey'd given o ther p ress th e wrong date, so t h ey were really late ... S ituation Normal in Hollywood. But J oe Parhurst fro m Cy cle Wor ld was t here, and the L.A. Ti mes Shav Glick. There was a guy fro m Big Bike an d so me Easter Seal p eople. Geo rge Barksdale had bro ught some of th e In convenien ced Yo ung Sportsmen, legless Ric ky Go od an d "Short Ricky " o n their skate boards down o n the fro n t row. Otherw ise, the room was half fu ll o f w heelchairs. T he re's a rou gh cam araderie am o ng parap legics. T here h as to be. People turn their faces, hi de th eir kids, try to pretend they're not there - as if t here we re so me stigma to havin g a critical p art o f yo ur bo dy bro ken, something that might rub off. And these guys had had a craw full o f it . T he y wer e h ere to share Bob's triumph and his hope ; to holler " Righ t On!" when Bob would say t hings like "\Ve're th e same peopl e; we 're ju st a little short er." It was turning in to a civil rights rally. "I've knocked o n a lot of doors and rattled a lo t of cages," Bob told them . When he hit Washington, D.C . during Queen Elizab e th's visit, the Queen got four and one-half minutes of local TV news coverage, and Bob got eight. He rode down U.S. I in D.C. with a TV cameraman straddling his front wheel. A c o p had pulled them over and asked "What the hell ar e yo u guys doing?" His donated Beltek CB had saved him once when a flat tire in the middle o f nowhere co uld have left him totally helpless. No w th e adventure was complet ed, and Bob had a platform to tell th e " no rm al" world some things he and his wheelchair-borne co mra des kn ow' intimately. Like t h e fac t t hat Bob paid $9 00 for his wheelchair, and it has "about as m an y parts as a bi cycle. I'm really down on the medical ind u stry. $30 0 for this fo am rubber pad I'm sitting on." Cheers and b itter agr eement fr om th e others, like teen-age Charlie, wh ose ch ro me-p lated wheelchair rusted out from the inside and broke. The manufacturer had told him, in effect, caveat emptor. Darryl Bassani was there , and stood up with Bob. Seems they'd b een talking abo u t busting the wheelchai r market. " Hey , kno wing what we know about race bi ke frames , we should be able to come up with a lighter, stronger ch air , more co m fo rtable, with a sophisticated suspension at the kind of prices they're charging today. If it 's at all feasible, we're going to try it. " There's more. Seems th e Russians say muscles never die , not even th e shrivele d-up paralyzed tissues of many paraplegics. The American Medical Asso ciat io n doesn't buy that. A bill had been p assed for spinal cord re generation research (to learn h ow to make a sever ed spinal co rd grow b ack togeth er ) and President Ni xon vetoed it. Then the bombshell. Dropped in a news release by Shav Glic k. Bob Hurt, an Indy race car driver wh o has been p araplegic for eigh t years, went to Russia under tight security . At the Surgical Inst itute in Len in grad he was given enzyme t reat me nts and th erapy in a hype rb aric (high pressure) ch amber, a legacy o f th e Russ ' space pro gram. He walked out. It was spe culated at the confer enc e that Mark Williams is there now, under equally he avy securi ty . Accordi ng to Bob, the problem is n ot so muc h the Russ ian s as our o wn peop le wh o refuse to believe a cure is possibl e. Head y stuff, and on this emot ional high , people be gan to trickle out of th e co n fe rence room, to get so m e p ix o f Bob o n his Sidehac k. The kids were go ne first. " T hey' re like an ts," said Ge orge Barksdal e as- th e tw o Rickys darted through a fo re st o f legs an d di sappeared. Almost instantly, Rick y Go od was b ack , wh it e-faced. "It's gone! It 's go ne , the side car's go ne!" " ~ .. "Righ t then, I co ulda' step pe d o n th e kid for m akmg a jo ke like that," Ge o rge .said later. But it was no j oke. Still in cr edulous, refusing to believe, we all rushed outside, amp u tees o n sk ateboards, able-bo di ed, wheelchairs, all h elter-skelter p ell-rn ell through the cro wded lobby , freaking ou t th e Beau tiful People, to find Bob 's Kaw asaki lean ing on a post, fluid dripping fr om a severed brake lin e, the culprits ' spe edw renc h st ill hanging from an en gine mount. There was a note. It said "Bob , we hav e repossessed the sid ecar . Do ug & Harleigh" Bob was at first speechless, the n furio us. Slo wly it cam e out. Dou g Malewicki an d Harleigh Langford were two frie nds wh o had h elped Bob b uild t he basic Para-Put t sidecar unit befo re Bo b h ad mo ved with it to Florida. Bob had worked for Male wicki after his paralysis, helping promote stunts with Malewicki's "kite-cycle " , a cross between a m otorcycle an d a h an g glide r whi ch m ayor m ay not h ave been insp ired by good 01' Mo 'cro ss Ca t. (Rem emb er?) Bob acknowledged owin g Langford $600 fo r parts and m aterials. He said, " If th ey'd co m e up to the co nfe renc e and asked for it , I co u ld h ave given th em the money. Now they've really done it. This bi ke is my on ly transportation. T hey've cost me, and th ey've cost NPF." So Bob called th e co p s. The cops came, th e TV pe o p le came , an d wh en they left, it was a dw indling and b ewildered group of frie nds left trying to figure o ut ho w an d why. What did they expect to gain ? Where was the hack now? How had scores of people sto od aro u nd the h otel fr ont in broad d aylight an d let them do it ? We shoo k hands and parted co mp an y , hoping that someh o w the hack would be recovered int act. Day Two - the stak eo u t It's Friday , August 6. The TV people who tho ught th e press conference was today came to the hotel , filmed Bob's accou n t of the m issing sidecar, an d split. I ducked in to t he office one last t ime in t he evening after a t rip to the camera store. A co-worker tells m e, " Yo u had a cal l from Bob Gill. Says some guys are sh aking him down for $250 0 and they 're goi ng to bust 'em tonight. Wants y o u to be there at the hotel. " Oh, God. Quick, call the wi fe, " Ho ney, I'm going to be late tonight. No, I do n ' t kn ow how late ." Grab the camera and the notebook, jump in m y van and boogie . Whistling through rush-h our free way traffic, in a dinged-up van with wasted turn signal s, bald tires and fading brakes, I'm thinking "What if I get busted? What if I cra sh? But worse, what if I'm too late ?" Gas it. There, a t the hotel, there's a uniform cop car parked in plain sigh t in t he driveway, and a uniformed sergeant argu ing with pl ainclothes hotel dicks in the hall wa y. Was I to o late ? Up to Bob's room . " What?" he cries . "They'll blow it all. T h ose guys will see t he cop car and never come ba ck," A flurry of phone calls. T he prowl car get s moved, an d the yo ung sergeant comes up to talk wit h Bob an d his lady Laurie. It tu rns ou t that the fuzz are in a legal strait-jacket, because th e o wnersh ip of the sid ecar is disp u ted. App arently the boy s had some legal advice to tak e t he hack but leave th e bike , which was duly regist ered in Bob's nam e. . There was the obvious charge of ve hicle-tamp ering, and t he matter of ex tor tion. Still , t he co ps were go ing to have to walk softly , m aybe impound t he hack until a cour t decided whose it was. But firs t , th e hack h ad to be fou nd . Doug and Har leigh st ill hadn't shown. The sergeant called the D. A.'s office, go t a few more legal p oints cleared up, andrelaxed a bit. " We've got so m e angles," he said . "Bnt you've got to decide wh ich is m ore im po rtan t - sending these guys .to jail or get ti ng y ou r sid ecar bac k in one piece." For Bob, th e cho ice was obv iou s. . We waited. The phone rang. It was Dou g. The rest o f u s shu t up as Bob d id vtbe ct alking. Yes , he had the money. (He didn't, quite). They were le aving Orange County now with the ha ck. Be in Hollywood in about an hour. We wait some more. Laurie is out on the stair landing, sobbing with tension. The vario us types of cops and gum shoes distribute themselves abou t the building. T he ph on e again . It 's Doug. Wan ts Bob to co m e downstairs. Lau rie 's be side herself. "I can't face them." The fuzz have sp lit fo r their st ake out positions. Bob asks me " Will yo u co me with me ?" an d gives me t he 560 0 bait to ·h old. I leave ca me ra and notebook in th e room, an d we walk/ wh eel together down to the bar. Male wicki is a sm all, intense youn g m an who looks like a cu rly-topped te enager ou t of the 50's. With him is a balding ol de r guy who ac ts like a mouthpiece. Between them, they've got a st ack of papers and file folders. The re ceip ts fo r the money owed Lan gfo rd are the re, but Lan gfo rd isn't. He's in a gas sta tio n somewhere awaiting a call fro m Malewicki. "If he doesn't hear from me within a certain time, he 'll take the sidecar away." Not too subtle . In addition to the 5600 owed Langford, Malewicki is also claiming co mp ensa tion fo r engi neering services an d pro totype work rendered on the Par a-Put t sidecar. For $1900, he's will ing to relinquish his claim, and has p ap ers fo r Bob to sign to t ha t effect. He 's also got a brochure for his p rototype design co mpany , wit h pictures of Bob's hack along with th e kite-cycle an d early versions o f Evel Knie vel's Sk y cycl e ro cket. He wants Bob to sign a rele ase for use of t he p ho to in the broc hure. A d ren a lin is really pumping. We show the $600 , Malewicki refu ses to show the sidecar . Neither trusts the other. We agree to go to Bob 's room to tal k some more, an d walk/ wh eel out. In to the arms of th e cops. For a m oment, Ma lewic ki and his friend ar e bl own. Then sel f-c ontrol r eturns, an d the cop s march us all to the hotel offic e to try to straighten things out. Malewic ki repeats his claims ; Bob repeats his. The cop in ch arge waves both away. "I'm not interested in that. Up un til you (t urning to Malewicki] took the sidec ar , th is was a civil m atter, and there'd be no need for us to be involved. But with the . taking of the sid ecar, it beco mes a crim inal matter." An d he began to t ick o ff t he possibl e charge s. The choice made short and sweet. Return th e sid ecar, and Malewicki and his fri ends ar e free to go , see k a cou rt injunction against Bob leavin g with it , any thing they wan t. The phone ca ll t o Langford is m ade. "T he co ps are all over us . Bring th e sidecar." Bob p ay s Langford th e $6 00 he owe s h im , and both sign a release state m ent. Bob also signs th e rel ease on Malewicki's b ro chure. As to Doug's other claims, Bob says, " Ear lier we migh t have talked. But after what yo u did to me here, l o we you n othing. " Male wicki and his fri ends are visibl y bitter. "Well, Bob, yo u ripped us off again," he said in p arting. It 's o bvio usly no t ov er. Once things get to this point between former friends, it never is. Back whe n everybody was swigging beer and joshing and working on the hack, Malewicki never got anything with Bo b 's signatu re o n it spelling out who'd get what if th e m achine were patentable or marketable. He rues th at fact very bi t terly. Good buddies never like to think of such things at the time of co ns tru c ti o n. And because th ey ne ver do , they 're likely to wind up enemies, and in court. • .. • ; ~ ~ t co r-.. ~ ....-I ~ ~ C\I +->

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