Todd Gogulski is a winning bike racer and now a commentator for the sport.

Anyone who knows him will think "Riding with Todd Gogulski" is going to be about bicycle riding.

Not me. What I think of was the time I was riding in a truck with him. I didn't know him well.

Todd was driving. It was a hulking old pickup, some American model, I'd guess a 1960s era one, stick. We were high school age, but he drove this truck with the comfort of someone who had been driving for half a decade or more, easy. Having met his family, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.

We were jamming down a hill on Old Taos Highway, a sort of country road at the time, just outside of town. It was not recreation. We were on some kind of a delivery task which I forget. Or sent to pick up something in the truck for his family, maybe.

Suddenly, he curses, loud. "Oh, shit!"

Slams on the brakes, pulls over. I had no idea what was going on.

Turns out there were some styrofoam packing peanuts in the back of the truck, and a handful of them had blown out the back, and he saw this happening in the mirror.

He jumped out, ran in back, and scrambled around chasing and picking up each and every one of them from the ground, and got the rest from the back. They went into the cab where they wouldn't blow around.

I still don't know him well, but he turned out OK.