Bell has been connected to American cycling culture for more than 30 years. We’ve been a protector, an innovator, a steady partner during all those endless training miles. Along the way, we’ve witnessed countless triumphs great and small. Weekly criteriums, Friday night track races, world championships. Bell has been there.
Looking back, some moments stand out. Some people stand out. They are the pioneers. The dreamers. The athletes and innovators who took American cycling to a place that didn’t exist before they came along. These are the people we call the Bell All-Stars. Over the next few months we’ll introduce our Bell All-Stars and tell you why we think they’re special. In some cases, their stories remain largely untold—perhaps because their achievements came in a different era, a time when bike racing was hardly a mainstream sport in America. Many of them had no guidebook, no path to follow. They forged their own.
As a young teen, Craig Schommer had an eye-opening introduction to bike racing at a San Jose’s Hellyer Park velodrome: “I remember racing around, scared out of my wits, and then somebody crashing…unconscious in a pool of blood, and I’m thinking: ‘Jesus, why did I pick this sport?’” Luckily for cycling, Schommer stuck with it, going on to win national championships, world championship medals, a stage of the legendary Coors Classic and a spot on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team in the road race.
To learn more, go to: bellhelmets.com/news/bell-all-star-craig-schommer-the-warrior
James H. Hibbard/ Dispatch Communications
Videography: Metis Creative
