The very first Ron & Don Show that only one person heard

Tomorrow my radio partner Don O’Neill is going to get on a bicycle and attempt to ride 206 miles in one day. The event is called the STP, or Seattle-to-Portland, and it’s been around since 1979. He’ll be one of the 10,000 brave souls making the attempt.

I can’t help but flash back to another bicycle ride that may have been the very first Ron & Don Show.

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Let me explain. The year was 1992, and Don and I became friends with an ultra-marathon bicyclist. His name is Gary, and he would ride his bike across America in an event called RAAM, or the Race Across America. Back then, the top riders would do about 3,000 miles in about 10-11 days.

Gary asked us to be on his crew, and we agreed. Our duties involved driving an old orange VW van behind our rider at about 15 miles per hour on the shoulder of various highways and byways across the country. The van was decked out with spare bikes on the top, flashing beacons, and everything you can think of inside the van that a rider might need.

On one particularly long overnight ride, Don was driving and I was in the passenger seat. Gary waved us up and I got ready to hand him some water bottles or a banana through the window. Sometimes he would ask for an ice cream sandwich, but that would take a while for me to dig out.

Gary looked at me when we pulled up alongside the bike and said, “I’m bored. Tell me some stories.”

I asked him if he needed any water or food, and he said, “I’m good, just tell me some stories.”

And with that, Don backed the van off, and I turned on the van’s homemade PA system – basically a big outdoor speaker horn we bought at Radio Shack. I turned to Don and said, “Gary’s bored. We need to do a show for him.”

I don’t remember the contents of the “first” Ron & Don Show. I can guarantee you that it wasn’t very good. We would pass the CB style mic back and forth between us as we just talked off the top of head while Gary rode his bike into the darkness. I think I remember telling every joke we knew, followed by funny stories from our time growing up together. Gary liked to play “name that tune,” so I would hold the CB mic up to the speaker and play 5 seconds of a song. Gary would give me a thumbs up if he knew the answer.

We basically did a crude version of a morning radio show.

If it wasn’t for that bicycle and that ride, there might not be a Ron & Don Show today.

Go get ’em tomorrow Don. When you get bored, think about that time we drove across the country following a guy on a bike, inventing a radio show.

You can hear “What are we talking about here?” everyday at 4:45 p.m. on 97.3 FM.

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