Gilroy – More than week before his death and just days before he began a biking trip cross-country, Mike Mathiasen shared via e-mail a quote from an unknown author that summed up the way he attacked every day of his life:
“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting holy s— what a ride.”
Mathiasen, who died of a heart attack Tuesday near Eugene, Ore., five days into the trip, had quite a journey and leaves behind a legacy as a man who lived with dignity and honor, filled his life with many passions – from the artistic to the athletic – and tried to make other people’s lives a little bit better.
Since hearing the news of Mathiasen’s death, relatives have gathered at the family’s home from as far away as Wisconsin and Texas to remember a beloved husband, father, brother and friend.
Sitting in the living room around a coffee table that holds piles of photos, new and old, of family members – including his three children, 24-year-old Elizabeth, 21-year-old Emily and 20-year-old William Drake, his wife of 25 years Kathy and his 85-year-old mother – Ruth related their memories of Mathiasen.
Mathiasen was 59 and a retired employee of the Santa Clara County Juvenile Department. He embarked on the ride with his longtime friend Bill Pritchard of Alameda. The two called themselves the Biking Vikings and were doing the ride for Kathy, who is currently in remission with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, an incurable form of cancer.
“I could tell he hated leaving us,” Kathy said. “But he was so excited.”
Pritchard, who met Mathiasen in the Air Force, arrived from Oregon at the family’s home Friday afternoon for the first time since the incident, wearing a black T-shirt with Livestrong in Tour de France yellow across the front and a yellow Livestrong bracelet around his wrist. He embraced Kathy and later shared stories about his last ride with Mathiasen.
Completing the northern route across the U.S. on bike was Mathiasen’s dream.
“It was his big adventure,” Kathy said.
Mathiasen made it his crusade, with the goal of raising money for cancer research through the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The idea was for he and Pritchard ride and spread their story to people they met and chronicle their ride through their Web site, www.bikingvikingsforacure.com.
Now that site will become a memorial.
The Vikings had started out a month late, due to the fact that Pritchard failed a stress test and had to have a mini-difibrillator implanted in his chest. Because of his weakened condition, the two decided Pritchard would get a head start on their daily routes and Mathiasen would catch up to him later in the day.
On Sunday July 3, as the pair approached Eugene, Ore., Mathiasen, who had been leading the entire day, offered the spot to Pritchard since they were nearing his friends’ home – their destination – and he knew the way. Then Mathiasen did something that Pritchard described as “typical Mike.” As they rode up to the house, he lagged behind, making it look like Pritchard had “kicked his ass” on the ride.
“That was his unselfishness,” Pritchard said.
“That was Mike,” added Kathy.
A ‘jack-of-all-trades’
Mike Mathiasen was a true renaissance man. Cycling was a huge part of his life. But before cycling, it was marathons. He did those – completing them in impressive fashion in under three hours – until 13 years ago when his knees could no longer take the pounding. In his high school days, his older brother Edward “Butch” Mathiasen said, he was a stud tennis player.
“He excelled at everything he did,” Butch said.
Kathy said her husband planned to read some golf books and take up the sport when he returned so that he could play with Elizabeth’s fiancé’s father.
In addition to being athletic, Mathiasen was also artistic. He dabbled in photography, pen and ink drawings and wanted to get back into painting watercolors. He also built most of the family’s house, with little more than the guidance of about 20 how-to videos.
Elizabeth still marvels at some of the beautiful baby photos her father took.
“They are just gorgeous,” she said. “He had an eye for light and texture. Kids are snotty and gross…”
“…but he made them look good,” finished her sister Emily.
Sailing was another passion of Mathiasen’s. He bought his first boat, a used $20 dinghy, before he knew what to do with it – it sank the first time out. But over the years he became an experienced skipper and successful racer on his sailboat. And he was so proud when his son Will showed a natural knack for sailing as a young boy.
Mathiasen called his boat the “Dulcinea,” which Pritchard said comes from Cervantes’ story of Don Quixote.
“Don Quixote was the visionary who tried to see things the way he wanted to see things, for the truth,” Pritchard said. “Not the way everyone else wanted him to see things.”
As the story of Don Quixote goes, there is a peasant girl Aldonza that everyone in the town looks down upon. But Quixote believes she is the most beautiful woman in the world, and changes her name to Dulcinea. But Kathy knows the other side to why her husband named the boat Dulcinea.
She was introduced to Mathiasen by her mother, with whom he worked at the Wright Center Conservation Camp, a correctional facility in San Jose. One night, Kathy, Mike and a group of others went to a movie, a double feature of “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Man of La Mancha.” During “Man of La Mancha” when Don Quixote sings to Dulcinea, Mike reached out and held Kathy’s hand for the first time.
“There was this electricity that ran through me,” Kathy recalled. “At that moment I knew he was my knight, my love. Mike was my Don Quixote.”
As the family sits and talks, the stories about Mathiasen continue. There’s the time he gave Elizabeth’s first bike to a co-worker who couldn’t afford a bike for his son. And the time he bought a $1,500 Dodge Charger at the auto auction for her high school boyfriend whose dream it was to own the muscle car. The family gets a good laugh from the tale of when he bought a big palette of Dominican Republic sour sop juice boxes, simply because it was a good deal. No one would drink the awful stuff, not even Pritchard, to whom Mathiasen brought the juice.
“I’ll try it later,” Pritchard said.
But instead of waste a perfectly good product, Mathiasen sat down one day and drank box after box of the juice.
The family knows what they will miss in the days and years to come.
“He leaves a huge hole,” Kathy said. “It’s unimaginable.”
The final days
Pritchard has some fond memories about his last ride with his good friend.
One day, the two stumbled upon some St. John’s Wort which bloomed to a beautiful and delicate flower.
“Kathy would like this,” Mathiasen said, and he took a photo of the flower for her.
Tuesday, July 4, was to be the gut check day of the ride, the day they would find out if despite his health problems, Pritchard could make the big climb – and continue the rest of the trip – as the two began to pass through the Cascade Mountains.
By 8:15 Tuesday morning, Pritchard, who needed more time to make the ride, had already started out. Mathiasen, on the other hand, stopped at the post office and mailed a letter and two rolls of film to Kathy. Pritchard said Mathiasen later spent some time doing one of his favorite pastimes – bargain shopping – and checked out some real estate fliers.
“He wrote his last letter on a real estate flier,” Kathy said.
Later in the day, Pritchard successfully made his ride all the way to the top of the 5,000 foot climb and waited for his friend.
“I could not wait to tell Mike I got here, that we’re good to go,” Pritchard said.
But several miles behind him, Mathiasen had suffered a heart attack.
“I went from absolute elation to absolute despair,” Pritchard said.
According to people at the scene of the accident, Mathiasen had fallen off the bike and was unresponsive when found. Not knowing if Mathiasen was suffering heat stroke, some of the rescuers poured water on his face. But Pritchard said Mathiasen showed no reaction and that the water just pooled in his eyes.
Pritchard found some peace later when he saw Mathiasen’s body.
“He had an absolute look of contentment on his face. It was beautiful to see, really.”
Two days after Mathiasen’s death, Kathy received the photos and the letter from her husband, final treasures to remember him by. At 3 in the morning on Friday, she arranged some of those photos and others taken over the years in a makeshift memorial just inside the main entrance to the house.
An hour and a half later, her husband’s ashes arrived home.
Although the big ride is over for now, it won’t be abandoned by the family, nor will the effort to raise awareness about cancer. The Biking Vikings Web site will remain up and running, encouraging visitors to donate money for research.
And sometime in the future, when he is ready, William Drake will follow in his father’s footsteps and complete the unfinished ride.
