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08/24/2016 08:30 AMJohn Stack is aiming for a century, but it’s not to celebrate an impressive birthday. It’s for another impressive feat: riding a bicycle 100 miles, known in cycling lingo as a century. John, who lives in Chester, is part of a local cycling team, at this point some 15 people, who will participate in Smilow Cancer Center’s Closer to Free ride to raise money for cancer research on Sunday, Sept. 11. Each team rider plans to raise $500 in contributions.
This is the sixth year of Closer to Free, which started out with fewer than 300 riders. With several weeks left to register, there are already 1,220 cyclists enrolled, according to ride coordinator Jessica Schepf, who said there are always additional last-minute registrations. For the first time this year, a 10-mile ride will be added to the three distances formerly offered, the 100-mile ride, a metric century of 62.5 miles, and a 25-mile ride. Schepf thought the youngest rider this year might be her seven-year-old son, who will do the 10-mile distance.
Last year Closer to Free raised about $2.2 million. This year the goal is $2.5 million. All the funds raised by riders go to support the programs of Smilow. Sponsors underwrite the administrative costs.
John returned to biking in 2014, after a serious fall some 20 years ago severely damaged his knee. It was a landmark year for him. He turned 50 and decided to abandon, at least temporarily, his corporate existence.
“I wanted to take my 50th year off, retire from the executive world, spend time with my family, and get back in shape,” he says. “No one ever looked up from their death bed and said, ‘I wish I had worked more.’”
John and his wife Kim have three children ranging in age from 5 to 10 years old.
Now John works in 10 to 13 hours of cycling a week along with running a consulting firm, High Path Partners, in the field of photonics. Photonics, John explains, is the sophisticated industrial uses of light, a field that embraces areas such as fiber optics and lasers.
He set up his business earlier this year. After a high-pressure managerial career, John can now create his own schedule.
“I’m doing things on my own terms,” he says.
He originally came to this area from New Jersey nine years ago as an executive at a company in Middlefield that manufactures optical instruments and components.
The client base for his consulting business is international, but John works from his home in Chester. In fact, Chester was central to his decision to begin High Point.
“I did it because I don’t want to move from Chester,” he says. “There are good people here and [it is] a good town, nice place to raise kids. It is a place I consider home.”
John adds that as a self-described Navy brat, he lived in a variety of different communities growing up. At the moment, he serves on the Chester Board of Education.
The uses of light have always fascinated John since as a 12-year-old he set up his own photography business. He went around his neighborhood in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, at Christmas with a Rolleiflex camera taking 8 x 10 keepsake family photographs. He learned to take pictures from his father, also an enthusiastic photographer.
He is still taking photographs, now with his own photography business and website, spiritdogphotography.com. His photographs are always of people and he describes his art as telling stories, freezing a moment in a person’s life.
“Anybody can take a pretty picture; it’s a different thing to tell stories,” he explains. “I am shooting as a photojournalist.”
His photographs, he adds, don’t occur by chance. As a photographer, he has learned to anticipate when things will come about. Though his photographs are displayed on his website and in his studio, he does not do shows. In fact, much of the work he does is pro bono, photographing local musicians, artists, and events. He gives the photographs to the artists to use in their publicity.
John says he has an advantage taking photographs of musicians: he is one himself. He has been drumming since the age of 11.
“It helps being a musician. I know when the changes are going to occur. I know when things are going to happen,” he says.
His studio showcases his passions, including photographs, an elaborate drum set, guitars, and a keyboard. There are, to be sure, several bicycles, including one on a repair stand, since he does his own tune-up work.
John is not the only musician in his family. His wife plays the bass, and his three children also perform. And they perform together in concert in a series that John was key in setting up: the Chester Family Concert Series. John himself has a small group, the Spring Street Band, made up of parents of children who play instruments: John on drums and Kim on bass, Ron Toth doing vocals and guitar, Rick Reed on guitar with occasional sit-ins from Meg Gister on piano.
The parents discussed getting the kids together for a recital and the idea expanded into creating recitalsexcellent for all ages. At the Chester Family Concert Series, children perform on their own, but often perform with the adults. The grand finale features everybody in the concert on stage and playing, regardless of skill level or experience.
“It’s been a tremendous hit; kids and adults doing this together, it’s wonderful,” John says.
So far the concerts have been held quarterly in private homes, but John thinks there is a possibility of moving to the Chester Meeting House this fall.
John most often rides trails on his mountain bike, but he has been taking out his road bike more regularly in preparation for the upcoming century.
“It’s a great cause and it’s going to be a very good day of riding,” he says.
The 100-mile distance doesn’t worry him. The only cloud on the horizon, quite literally, is one John cannot control.
“I hope the weather is okay,” he says.
To donate to Closer to Free, visit rideclosertofree.org and click on “donate.” To donate to John Stack, enter his name in the box that says “Fundraiser Search.” To learn more about the Chester Family Concert Series, email John Stack at jstack4651@gmail.com.