The Lone Mechanic

Rookies stumble into the bike shop like babies, big white helmets strapped below their chins, cheeks chapped red from the October cold.

Some cling to the edges of the room. Others move around cautiously. They mutter to each other asking what tire pressure they should fill their wheels to. Their friends respond, heads shaking — clueless.

But an older rider, the oldest in the room by some 49 years, takes pity on the rookies.

In the middle of the Little 500 bike shop, Greg Souder cranes his neck over a road bike, spinning its front tire to check the derailleur, ensuring the chain shifts gears properly. A chunk of dirt flies off the spokes.

The room smells like spray paint, a few of the riders smell like sweat. More experienced cyclists grab what they need and wave hello to the man. The newer riders, though, are less certain. Until recently some didn’t even know the bike shop tucked away under the stands of the race track existed.

“Don’t be bashful if you need help!” Greg yells out.

Dozens of student riders whisk in and out in preparation of the day’s race: the Bloomington Classic. And a few dozen times, Greg will show them how to adjust their bike seats, inflate their tires or tighten their chains.

Hundreds of students attempt to compete in the race. About 264 riders on 66 teams race on 185 bicycles. And one lone mechanic is responsible for keeping every wheel turning.

Of the thousands of fans who watch from the stands, most won’t even see Greg. To those who do, he is little more than a speck on the sidelines of the Little 500 racetrack.

But to the college kids who wheel their bikes into his shop week after week, Greg is the reason the race goes on.

•••

Greg didn’t expect to get the job.

When he came home from work mowing lawns for the city one evening in 2018, his wife Joie greeted him with a hiring ad she’d cut out of The Herald-Times. She said she found him the perfect job.

“But I didn’t think they’d hire an old man,” he said.

The mechanics for previous races were typically in their early 20s, recent IU graduates who tended to stick around only for a year or two. They weren’t like Greg, 69, with a thick gray horseshoe mustache, doctor-recommended compression socks, vintage cars and grandchildren.

This spring will be his seventh year.

With that time has come wisdom. When the Little 500 arrives, and Greg parks himself along the track with a storage container aptly labeled “GREG’S STUFF FOR RACE DAY,” he’ll have thought of everything. He brings water bottles and bandaids, extra washers because sometimes when the kids build their own bikes, they put the wrong kind on. In October, he packed extra clothes in case anyone got cold.

He learned to carry safety pins if riders forgot to attach their race numbers to their jerseys.

“I was a Boy Scout,” he said. “And Boy Scouts are supposed to be prepared.”

To Greg, working as the Little 500 mechanic is a dream job — far better than when he worked on his father’s farm, or in his brother’s pizza shop, or as a trucker or a factory worker or a tree stump grinder.

He said he’s always been “mechanically inclined,” ever since he was old enough to reach the pedals on a tractor. When he was 16, he taught himself how to repair cars because he didn’t have the money to pay someone else to, and his penchant for street racing meant his 1965 Chevelle Super Sport was often in need of TLC.

He enjoys pushing the boundaries of his knowledge — unraveling greasy puzzles made of gears and wires. He likes the satisfaction, the sense of accomplishment that comes with doing something yourself.

Greg didn’t become interested in cycling until he was in his mid-50s, when a doctor told him it would be better for his knees than running. He even owned a bike shop in Huntington, Indiana, for a few months in 2012. When he accepted the Little 500 mechanic position, he assumed he’d be working alone on bicycle upkeep.

“I never dreamed that I would have such one-on-one conversations and things with the students,” Greg said. “And there’s a teaching aspect to it that I never dreamed about, because these students are like sponges.”

Dorothy Curran-Muñoz joined the Little 500 her sophomore year. She was looking for somewhere that made the campus of almost 50,000 students feel smaller. She was invited to start the women’s Novus team, but she knew nothing about racing. Dorothy didn’t even have her own bike to practice with outside of Little 500.

“So my mom found one for me on Facebook Marketplace for like 80 bucks,” she said. “And it was totally only worth 80 bucks.”

When it wouldn’t shift gears correctly, the men’s Novus captain directed her to the mechanic. Greg welcomed Dorothy, fixed her bike and showed her what the different parts were. He opened the bike shop for her one day and spent an hour teaching her.

“I remember walking away that day feeling such a sense of belonging that I hadn’t before,” Dorothy said. “I was like, ‘Okay, maybe I can do this.’”

Now, Dorothy is a senior on the Riders Council. She says she often encourages rookies to go to Greg for help because he never makes them feel out of place. Whenever she sends someone his way, she makes sure to tell them to say thank you.

“You know when professors, like, you can just tell that they love what they’re doing? They love the content. They love teaching. They want you to understand,” she said. “That’s how Greg is about bikes.”

Dorothy said Greg taught her everything she knows about bikes. When she walks into the shop the day of the Bloomington Classic, he catches up with her and asks if she got a haircut.

Other riders learned what they know from Greg, too. Owen Teed is a senior and President of Riders Council. The Little 500 is in his blood — his dad raced for Human Wheels when he went to IU, and his sister Abby raced for Melanzana.

During Welcome Week his freshman year, Owen’s sister introduced him to Greg. The next year when Owen started his own team — a revitalized Human Wheels — he went to Greg again.

“He remembered my last name and I told him I was, in fact, Abby Teed’s brother,” Owen said.

The first few times Greg fixed his bike, Owen didn’t watch carefully. But soon he realized just how often they needed repairs.

“So the next time I took it to him, I paid close attention,” he said. “And everything I've had him do on my bike, I've paid close attention, to the point where last year I built my team's race bikes.”

Greg says it’s harder for boys to ask him for help than girls. He thinks boys don’t want their teammates to think less of them. Owen says Greg told him the men’s teams don’t take enough advantage of the skills he has to offer.

But Owen is quick to say he’s glad to learn from Greg.

“You can tell it kind of warms his heart a little bit to see that what he’s taught you has paid off, and you’re now able to do it on your own,” Owen said.

To Greg, that’s one of the best parts about the job. He loves watching students grow during their time at IU — not just as riders or mechanics, but as adults.

Just a few weeks before this year’s Little 500, Greg told Owen it seemed like just yesterday he walked into the bike shop as a freshman.

“And in four years just, poof,” Greg said. “Went by already.”

Before the Bloomington Classic, Greg kneels down on the cement floor marked with tire prints to show a girl how to pump air into her tire.

“In a couple of years,” he says to the rookie, “you’ll be captain of the team.”

•••

When Greg and his wife moved to Bloomington in 2017 from Markle, Indiana, they didn’t know many people in town.

Then in December 2021, Greg found out he had a tumor on his kidney.

“When you go to a doctor and that doctor mentions the C-word —” he says. His voice trails off. “My mind just went fuzzy.”

He’d never received a diagnosis like it. He’d never even broken a bone, spare a few fingers he smashed working in a factory.

Cancer changed things for Greg. He could no longer ride his bike for miles every day. He could no longer move as freely. But more than that, it changed how Greg thought. It lingered in the back of his mind no matter what he was doing. He had a granddaughter and a grandson on the way. Joie had health problems too, and he wanted to take care of her.

“I just kept thinking, ‘Man, I want to be here for them,” he said.

On Valentine’s Day 2022, he had his kidney removed, but the cancer had spread to his bladder. He had to undergo immunotherapy treatments for the next two and a half years. Being away from home made it more difficult.

“It’s really hard when you move across the state and move away from all your family and friends, or most of them,” Greg said. “At my age, it's hard to make close friends.”

The support he found at the Little 500, though, from the race director and the students and office staff, meant everything to him. His bosses let him keep his job and take time off. They brought in another mechanic to help him. Calls and texts poured in from people wishing him well.

“It just made me realize this is where I belonged,” he said.

That’s why he was back working the race that April 1, less than two months after having his kidney removed. He loves this job, he says.

Today, Greg is healthy. But even now, he chooses not to use the word “cancer-free.” He says he’s lucky he didn’t have to go through chemo, lucky that life is good. Still, when he goes in for scopes and scans, he holds his breath and hopes they don’t find anything.

Tucked away on a shelf in his garage at home, wrapped safely in a plastic baggie, he stores the cards riders wrote to him when he was sick.

“Kept every one of them,” he said.

•••

As the spring approaches, Greg stays at Bill Armstrong Stadium later and later, often past 9:45 p.m. when the racetrack closes.

He can feel the anticipation building. He sees teams glide around the track in packs, day after day until the end of April. All the riders are nervous, he says, every single one of them.

He tells them to have fun. Enjoy the moment.

“You’ll be fine,” he says. “That’s usually the last words — ‘You’ll be fine.’”

He stands at the track, watching as kids lap him. A rider calls out to him from her bike, and then she’s gone. She zips past before he can recognize who it is.

“That happens all the time,” he says.

The anxiety leading up to the race doesn’t get to him anymore, not like it did the first year or two. He doesn’t take any stress home from work. Joie said he can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

At home Greg’s garage is pristine. Every tool is hung just so, his dog Kylo is sprawled in front of the hood of his prized possession, a sparkly blue 1963 Mercury Meteor. His grandson Lewis and granddaughter Norah love riding in its rear-facing back seat. Norah is 8 and chatty and orbits Greg like he’s the sun.

He could stay at home, relaxed and retired. But he chooses to be the lone mechanic.

“Before I was trying to make money doing everything, you know? When your kids are young, that's your focus, especially as a man providing for your family,” he says. “And I don't have to do that anymore. So I think that makes it more enjoyable that I don't have to do this.”

For now, Greg has no plans to retire. When he does, he thinks they should replace him with another “older gentleman.”

“I know the end will come someday, and I just sincerely hope that the IUSF can find somebody that loves this job as much as I do,” he says.

He waits in the bike shop. Even though it’s cold he leaves the door propped open for kids to come in. On the workbench, he’s framed a photo of him and some riders, all of whom are long graduated.

Soon, he’ll be done too.

“I’m hoping if I make it 10 years,” he says, “Maybe they’ll name the bike shop after me.”

Like what you're reading?
Support independent, award-winning student journalism. Donate.