Bob Nelson: The Biker Bigger Than Life
Defeating countless injuries, Bob inspired generations of fellow LGBT athletes and excelled as a writer, journalist, and physical therapist.
Bob Nelson en route to Gay Games IX in 2014. Photo by Da Ping Luo.
By James W. Revak
“There’s nothing small about me,” Bob Nelson once said. Standing six feet tall and weighing in at 180 pounds, he was indeed big—and far more than just physically.
A pioneer in LGBT athletics, he co-founded Fast and Fabulous, New York City’s first LGBT cycling club, and led it until his death. He won numerous medals in the Gay Games for his biking—including two gold at age sixty-four.
He earned three masters degrees from Columbia University—the last one in physical therapy at age fifty. For many years, until his death, despite challenging medical conditions, injuries, and surgeries, he biked many miles daily across New York City, providing physical therapy to patients in their homes.
Reveling in his outsized personality, he once ran the Front Runners New York Lesbian and Gay Pride Run dressed as Carmen Miranda.
Bob as a five-year old.
Robert John Nelson was born in Kingston, New York, about one hundred miles north of New York City, on October 1, 1953. His father, John Nelson, was a World War II veteran and life insurance salesman; his mother, Constance Nelson, a school secretary. He grew up with them, his maternal grandmother, and his younger brother, Gary, in Saugerties, a small town near Kingston.
“Running was my religion,” Bob said. If so, his conversion came early; he took the sport up at age fourteen and stood out as a member of the Saugerties High School track and field team. He also excelled academically, was named salutatorian, and graduated summa cum laude in 1971.
He then attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, majoring in Political Science and minoring in French. He was fluent in French and spent his junior year abroad in Geneva. As in high school, he excelled on the track and field team, was named salutatorian, and graduated summa cum laude in 1975.
He soon relocated to New York City, where he pursued graduate studies at Columbia University and, in 1977, ran the first of his many New York City marathons. That same year, he earned his first masters degree, a M.A. in Political Science; a year later he earned, his second, a M.Phil. in Comparative Politics. By 1980 he had completed all coursework at Columbia and original research in the Ivory Coast for a Ph.D., but chose not to write a dissertation.
Bob in 1980 at age 26. Incredibly, he described himself in his journal from this period as “average looking”.
By his own account, he came out as a gay man as a senior in college. He quickly threw himself into LGBT life in New York, frequenting gay dances at Columbia and participating in his first pride march. He met Joe Cassidy with whom he lived and had a romantic relationship for eleven years. They remained friends throughout Bob’s life.
He relished a wide range of other cultural activities and events: from the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere production of Alban Berg’s Lulu in 1977 to screenings of John Waters’ underground film Pink Flamingos.
In the 1980s and early 1990s he lived in Jersey City, New Jersey, and worked as a writer and journalist. As a reporter for the Associated Press in New York, he interviewed such notables as Al Gore, Jr., George McGovern, Jerry Falwell, Sr., Phyllis Schlafly, and Paul Tsongas. He was an editor for the Daily Record in Morristown, New Jersey, from 1984 to 1989 and a science writer in the Office of Public Information at Columbia from 1992 to 1999. He frequently wrote news and commentary for Gay Community News, a weekly formerly published in Boston and read nationally.
Bob, en travesti, at the Front Runners New York Lesbian and Gay Pride Run, probably in 1993.
Bob dedicated himself to LGBT athletics during its early days in the 1980s as a member of Front Runners New York. Until his death, he was prominent in this club for LGBT runners. When he ran, he delighted his friends with his frequent sartorial flamboyance, including drag. He was also an accomplished swimmer, often competing in swim meets and training for decades with Team New York Aquatics, a club for LGBT swimmers.
He was also active in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons, participating in a 1,500-mile march from Washington, D.C. to the Pantex nuclear weapons facility near Amarillo, Texas, in 1983.
In 1990, Bob competed in the Bay State Triathlon, his first triathlon. For many athletes one torturous endurance race that requires swimming, cycling, and running would be more than enough, but not for Bob. He competed in numerous additional triathlons throughout the country.
Bob in the Bay State Triathlon in 1990. From The Bob Nelson Papers in the LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
In 1993, Bob returned to New York, renting an apartment in Inwood at the northern tip of Manhattan, where he lived the rest of his life. From it, he sent out madcap invitations he designed to such fancifully named parties as The Crossdresser Happy Hour. But this party had a serious goal: securing donations for his participation in the 550-mile California AIDS Ride in which he biked from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for AIDS charities. His annual raucous holiday parties at which he served vast quantities of his homemade boeuf bourguignon rapidly became legendary amongst his many friends.
In 1994, with Debbie Bell, he co-founded Fast and Fabulous. Early members included his close friend Paulette Meggoe, who frequently led rides. The club, originally part of Front Runners New York, later became independent. Though athletic by nature and a sponsor of numerous bike rides, it is also a social group, giving members a valuable sense of camaraderie.
“Fast and Fabulous is more than cycling,” member Rob Sinclair explained. “I found it about ten years ago when I was newer to New York and didn’t have friends here. Club members became my first friends and they still are. It gave me my first sense of community in New York. It changed my life. Activities even include dinners. In fact, some members describe it as a foodie club with a cycling disorder,” he wryly noted.
In Vancouver, in 1990, Bob participated in his first of seven Gay Games, and in Amsterdam, in 1998, at Gay Games V, he and three other members of the Fast and Fabulous team won gold medals in a trial race.
Members of the Fast and Fabulous team receiving gold medals at Gay Games V in 1998. Left to right: Brian Grundstrom, Bob Nelson, Martin DenBeor, and Dwight Sholes. From The Bob Nelson Papers in the LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
Bob brandished an alternately fantastical and wicked sense of humor in articles for club newsletters and personal correspondence. In a report on Gay Games V for the Team New York Aquatics newsletter he wrote, “It was impossible for photographers to get a shot of Bob Nelson, so fast was he on his bike. All attempts turned out like this. One day, new digital strobe technologies will capture Bob in a bike race.” More than once he closed letters to friends with “Yours, in lesbian avengerhood”.
The late 1990s and early 2000s was a time of change for him. Painful knee arthritis forced Bob to retire from running and triathlons though he remained an ardent cyclist and enthusiastic swimmer for the rest of his life. He also made professional changes. “I thought about what I was doing with my life and decided to become a physical therapist because I knew it would be the best way for me to help others,” he explained.
After completing a pre-med program at City College of New York, he earned his M.S. in Physical Therapy, from Columbia in 2003. He then worked as a physical therapist in clinics in New York, including over six years at H & D Physical Therapy.
From 2013 until his death, he worked for Hudson In Home Physical Therapy. Combining cycling and physical therapy, it was his dream job. He biked daily throughout Manhattan and the Bronx, serving patients in their homes because they were too sick or frail to venture out.
Braving insane traffic, steep hills, sweltering or freezing temperatures, and even snow storms, he made his appointed rounds. Despite knee and hip replacement surgeries, other surgeries, and getting run over by an SUV, he resumed serving patients in days or, at most, a week—often against the advice of his doctors. He was indestructible!
Sylvia Eversole, a friend who met Bob as his patient after injuring herself in a fall, recalled, “Bob came to my apartment. Right off the bat, that was fantastic because I couldn’t walk well. I’m not athletic but he told me exactly what exercises to do and how to do them. Today, I go up and down steps and visit friends in my building without using the elevator. Bob was a wonderful therapist and friend.”
He was also a risk-taker and accident prone. He once jumped onto subway tracks to retrieve a friend’s dropped bag. He was fined $1,400 for running three consecutive red lights on his bike. In bike accidents, he suffered numerous fractures and, by his count, eleven concussions. If a cat has nine lives, Bob had ninety.
In 2014, Bob met James W. Revak, who had just returned to New York after twenty-four years in San Diego. Their first date was conversation in a café; their second, a Fast and Fabulous bike ride from Central Park to the Bronx. On the return trip, as Jim crossed the Broadway Bridge, the front wheel of the bike that Bob had lent him flew off and he fell. Oblivious and far ahead, Bob sailed on. Fortunately, Jim was unhurt, and eventually caught back up. He later recalled, “It was pure Bob. Gay men, bicycles, an accident. What was not to like?”
Fortunately for the couple, subsequent dates went much better. Two months later they were partners and three months later Jim moved in with Bob. They made a life together that included sharing dinner that Jim prepared nightly, jazz concerts, musical soirées at the home of soprano Lauren Flanigan, and a vacation in California, where they snorkeled with the benign leopard sharks of La Jolla Cove. They adopted a feisty Chihuahua mix rescued in Puerto Rico and named her Loquita (Spanish for Crazy Little One).
Bob enjoying a champagne brunch prepared by Jim on New Year Day 2019.
Bob organized a bike tour of the Dolomites, Venice, and Verona in northern Italy for Fast and Fabulous in 2016. They even rode the Strada dei Cento Giorni with its steep ascent, hairpin turns, and long tunnels. Twenty-year member Lori Goodman recalled, “It took hours and was even occasionally scary. When I finished I was utterly exhausted but very proud.” Remembering Bob, she said, “He was an efficient, thoughtful, and practical leader. He spent months organizing this trip and many others for the club and I have always been very grateful.”
A year later Bob was a “star” in the 2017 Australian film documentary MAMIL: Middle Aged Men in Lycra about men of a certain age around the world who are passionate cyclists. Even Jim had a supporting role as the “cycling widow”.
In 2018, he biked more impressively than ever. At Gay Games X in Paris he won two gold medals, one for mountain biking and another for a criterium race, and, just for good measure, a silver for a road race.
During his final few years, he had increasing difficulties swallowing, possibly because he had the medical condition Barrett’s Esophagus. He briefly choked on food on several occasions when Jim and others had to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. But he apparently suffered no lasting ill affects and continued to vigorously pursue life.
Bob inspired numerous LGBT athletes both young and old and received many awards and honors. Outcycling, an LGBT cycling club in New York, honored him with its Development Leader award for his work with its youth program Fearless Flyers, and Front Runners New York named him Male Cyclist of the Year. Many of his achievements and much of his impact are documented in The Bob Nelson Papers in the LGBT Community Center National History Archives.
Bob and Jim in Paris a few days before Bob’s fatal accident. This is our last picture of him.
In September 2019 Bob and Jim embarked on a five-week dream European vacation. Their first stop was Paris. They visited the Louvre and Saint Chapelle and walked the length of the Promenade Plantée. But on day five, September 21, tragedy struck. While they were enjoying dinner in a restaurant, Bob accidentally choked on food. Jim and others administered first aid, but he lost consciousness and was rushed by ambulance to Hôpital Lariboisière, where he never woke up. He died on September 27. He was cremated at the renowned cemetery Père Lachaise on October 1. It was his sixty-sixth birthday to the day.
In addition to Jim, survivors include his first partner Joe of Ooltewah, Tennessee, his mother Constance Nelson-Synwolt of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, and his brother Gary of Londonderry, New Hampshire. He is fondly remembered by them and numerous LGBT athletes, patients, friends, and other family members.
“Bob took great care of me,” Jim recently recalled. “This bigger-than-life biker was the kindest man I have ever known and the only person to ever love me unconditionally. His goal in life was to make me happy and he did and he still does. I am the luckiest person in the world.”
October 1, 2020