Mike Rust – An Intense Guy

by Betty Plotz

In order to pay tribute to his life, I’ve been casting about to find a word to describe Mike Rust. A unique and independent person who proudly lived “off the grid” near Saguache, Co, “Mike Bike,” as he was known by friends, disappeared on March 31, 2009 after confronting burglars near his home.

I decided to go with the word “intense” to describe Mike. He lived life at a very intense level. Coming from a raucous Colorado Springs family that included six other intense children, he began building bicycles in the seventh grade.

After a brief love affair with motorcycles, Mike returned to building bicycles, a journey that took him to Crested Butte in the infancy of the mountain bike industry. In 1985 he joined with Salidan Don McClung to start Colorado Cyclery in Salida, expanding his renowned bicycle building repertoire to include the Ordinary (high wheel) bicycle and an innovative, elevated chain-stay mountain bike named the Shortie. His early mountain biking experiences in Crested Butte in both the technical and competitive fields, as well as his ground-breaking design ideas led to his induction into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1991. In 1989 he placed first in Colorado State Games Mountain Bike Races.

He also participated in the Ordinary World’s Road Championships Museum & Parade where he rode the Ordinary in performances of the play, “Spokesong.”

Rust and McClung also started the annual Fourth of July Crest Trail Ride which began at the top of Monarch Pass; a ride that Mike would complete on his one-speed Ordinary. He also, amazingly, rode his high-wheeler in Ride the Rockies, the annual bike tour of Colorado, often powering through the uphill passes while others with 24 gears and state-of-the-art machines fell by the wayside. During the trip of a lifetime, Mike and five of his brothers rode Ordinaries in the 1990 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland. You can bet it was quite a show.

Another indication of Mike’s intense and competitive athletic spirit was found on the slopes. I think he learned to ski in about three minutes. On slow days at Monarch ski area we would chase him all over the hill “gang skiing.” A group of about ten skiers would ride up the lift, ski down as fast as we could and back onto the chairlift for a much-needed rest on the next ascent. Then we’d race back down to the chairlift, usually far behind Mike, until we began to get dizzy with all that up and down. There was no stopping him and if you got left behind, well, you got left behind.

Mike made everything fun. He took great delight in his nieces and nephews and making sure they were happy. He would often tease people in a fun way. Being the showman, he was always greeting strangers with the same playful attitude that put them at ease. As one friend said, “He was just the happiest guy.”

Salida artist and fellow Ordinary enthusiast Jack Chivvis remembers how Mike “was sort of a playful prankster and would let local macho guys ride the (Ordinary) bikes in front of the bike shop during ‘happy hour’ just to watch them crash.” He added, “When he moved to the valley he loved to watch the hawks fly around and would fly his radio-controlled planes up with them. He loved the solitude and became a bit of a hermit. He was quite an inventor and had a whole collection of planes built out all sorts of materials.”

And he was intensely frugal. He built his own home 14 years ago from recycled (and usually free) materials long before the word sustainability came into vogue. He was proud that he had no obligations or ties to the utility companies. One brother tells of volunteering to help with the home construction, but Mike refused to let him use a hammer because it would disturb the quiet. Instead all the joints had to be screwed together.

Mike’s creative side again revealed itself with his recent hobby of model airplane construction. He built a collection that could very well qualify for the Smithsonian Museum because of his intense attention to details.

Mike Rust was definitely a Renaissance Man who will be intensely missed by his friends and family. A Celebration of his life is planned for November 8 in Colorado Springs at the International Dance Club, 2422 Busch Avenue at 2:00 in the afternoon.

Betty Plotz has lived in the Salida region for 30 years, wrote a history of the Hutchinson Ranch for Colorado Central and considers herself semi-retired.