The most interesting thing to me that I’ve done is commercial fishing in AK. A glorius way to make a living. A couple guys going places no one else ever goes, seeing thing no one else ever sees and doing things no one else outside of the fraternity can do. But I don’t think of it as a life contest with me as # 1. But you’d be terrified in conditions we’d find boring.

Sorry I didn’t stay young for you. You’ll certainly never mature for me.

As to your preposterous proposition, the little I know of O’Reilly and Beck is that they have more faith in this country than the Obamassiah, who thinks we all wake up, wondering when he’s gonna turn the sun on.

Eight of those were on the campus of a school that had recently remodeled the music building, so they didn’t have to go into the truck, but they did have to go across the campus and up the stairs. Anybody can drive, but that’s not what they pay me for.

So try bullshitting somebody that hasn’t had a few real world life experiences.

I would have to take lessons for that. Do you give them?

I never made that claim. As you pointed out, similar bikes were built in a lot of places, including France during the 1950s.

What I DID was put on the first regular schedule of competitive events, starting in 1976 with what has become a world championship discipline, downhill racing. I owned the first bike made from scratch for that purpose, and joined with two friends in 1979 to start the first company to sell those bikes. We called the company “MountainBikes.” After the trademark attorney screwed up my application to trademark the name, everyone else started using the term, so we named the sport.

I also published the first magazine for mountain bikers, I was a charter member of the first sanctioning body for the sport (National Off-Road Bicycle Association or NORBA) and in 1983 I wrote the rules used ever since then in international mountain bike racing, including the Olympic Games. I’m featured in a prize-winning documentary about the history of mountain biking. Check out “Klunkerz.

We didn’t invent the bikes. We invented the sport. There was no such thing as “downhill off-road bicycle racing” until I started putting on those events over 30 years ago. Now the high school where my daughter recently graduated has a mountain bike team, as does every HS in the county, and it is the most popular sport there with 60 riders of both sexes out of 1100 students.

Although I don’t work in the industry any more, I ride some great bikes these days, and I do NOT have to pay for them.

My name is Charlie Kelly. Google that with the word “bike” and then tell me what you did that was as interesting or influential.

11 pianos in one day without OT is moving a lot of pianos. But you’re cherrypicking. That’s less than 45 minutes a piano. That’s not enough time to just drive to the different sites in city traffic unless things are really breaking your way. So try bullshitting somebody that hasn’t had a few real world life experiences. I’m sure you and your crew would be faster than me and my crew…for the first few pianos. A weeks learning curve and I’d be willing to wager. On the other hand try moving a house or a ship. I’ll give you and your boys a weeks worth of practice and call you out. Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed with your niche, just not as impressed as you are.

Let me know when you plan to move one, so I can come out with the crew, some beer, and the folding chairs.

Low speed is a luxury for people who don’t need to make money. If I took all day to move a piano, I wouldn’t get many of them moved. I did 11 pianos in one day last week, each of them had to go up at least one flight of stairs, and we still didn’t get into overtime.

The job pays me about $100/hr. If it was that easy, you would think a) more people would be able to do it and b) it wouldn’t pay so much.

Of course, I do more than move the pianos even though I am the key member of my crew. I also drive the truck, book the gigs, lead the crews, handle the accounting and payroll, answer the phone, form the plan for challenging operations, AND PAY FOR THE MISTAKES. I have only filed two insurance claims in the last twelve years.

I don’t know what you do, but when people find out what I do, they take a step back and say, “Whoa.” Does that happen to attorneys?

I used to, and I am a charter inductee to the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. I am 63 years old and I guarantee that I can kick your ass on a bike.

I also published a magazine for 7 years, I wrote a book, and I worked as an editor for several other magazines. I found that freelance writing is a lot of fun, but it doesn’t pay very well.

Now I move pianos. Very heavy, expensive, delicate objects, some costing as much as my house, that I deliver into expensive homes that the owners do not care to see damaged. Check out my website photos.

The reason I get paid an hourly comparable to a psychiatrist or an attorney is because anyone can be a psychiatrist or an attorney, but statistically, about one person in 100,000 has the personal confidence (i.e. guts), leadership ability, intelligence and physical ability to do what I do. I’m even a little on the small side (6′ 190#) for the job, but I get it done.

My job is safe as any, because even if they quit making pianos tomorrow, there would be a lot of them left, and every day some of them have to be somewhere else. Plus I get to meet a lot of rock stars. They all own pianos.

Have you ever done anything interesting or difficult?

“Just from what I have read here, there is nothing in the world you do well enough to have me pay you to do it. If you showed up at my office looking for work, I would be in serious danger of laughing myself to death.”

I know that you are all impressed with yourself about being a piano mover. It is a good gig, you deserve credit for exploiting the niche.

But maybe you need to get over yourself a little bit. What you’re doing isn’t rocket science, there’s a million blue collar guys that can pull off your gig including myself and probably 1/3 of the guys I’ve ever worked with over the years. It’s low speed, low impact rigging, minimal amount of gear and a good insurance policy.

You’re smart enough I’d hire you but the crew would give you a pretty hard time once you started claiming you’d invented the mountain bike. The young ones could be fooled but the older ones grew up on stingrays and watched the whole thing evolve, first copying motocross with bmx bikes and then into what is now called a mountain bike.

So quit giving Frank a hard time about how he couldn’t hack it in your NASA grade outfit. You’re not really setting the bar very high. Rigging is a bit more challlenging when the objects are big, pianos aren’t.

So Sayeth the Impaler!

Clearly pre-Enlightenment.

Can’t be both, Impy. Them’s mutually exclusive terms. The intersection set is null.