Remembering Chris Tricoli – Foreverwild
Chris was my best friend. I write this not to mourn or to be sad, though one of the most important qualities Chris taught me was to never suppress your emotions and let them flow out. Chris was the best friend I could share all my successes and demons with. To share all the good and bad I’ve done. He was my confidant. Being able to talk about my mistakes with Chris allowed me to grow. To put everything in perspective, we used to dialogue about how far we had come through our life experiences. From success and failure in business to relationships that ended, there was always a greater insight to be had, through our conversations. Chris was always that buddy that I could call at any time of the day and talk things out with. From 2011, when I met him, until his demise, he was always there providing support to me. He was there through all of the successes in business, wins on and off the bicycle, and through the new seasons of life that unfolded.
Long before we started gravel riding in 2014, our first call to adventure came about when we walked on top of the Publix Distribution center, next to Orlando International Airport. I remember riding our bicycles through the halls, while recording the adventure through our GoPros, and seeing the lights flicker and thinking of the song we’d play over the video. There was always a calmness we had when we were exploring some place we knew we weren’t supposed to be. The devious part of the adventure always seems to thrill us. There was an inner peace and calmness that we had even though we knew we could get in trouble. If we were ever approached, we generally talked our way through it knowing fully well that there were far worse things we could be doing. We sat on top of the building for at least an hour watching the planes land over the Orlando International Airport. And in that moment, the last thing I was thinking about was that maybe we should come back and do this again one day. That was just the start to many more “one and done” adventures that happened just at the right time. On every ride, we explored at least one new area we’ve never been before.
We would share our favorite songs with each other and I began to build up a new library of music, some of which my favorites songs I found back in the mid 2010’s and are still favorites to this day. There would be songs that would flow through our veins and send shivers down the spine. We always had a deep appreciation and sentiment for the music we shared. We’d talk about what the song meant to us and the moments in our lives when we first heard them. One of our most recent favorite song’s that I’ll never forget was called “Collide” by VNV Nation. Chris always liked the instrumentals and vocals to the songs. He would sing out Brooklyn Baby by Lana Del Rey and orchestrate the instrumentals on the VNV Nation songs. The Collide song, brought about a powerful build up to the instrumentals. It was rare to find a song with powerful instrumentals and lyrics combined. This one brought it out just right. I’ll never forget listening to this song cruising down the highway coming back from a ride. The song was like life with a build up of emotions. Letting them flow through the body and letting out the emotions into peace. Being grateful of all the experiences and people encountered in life and that it all happened as it did and couldn’t have happened any other way. “Nothing before, nothing will end We never truly die”.
More recently in the past 2 years, we started really getting deep into the gravel adventures. Chris and I both shared a deep appreciation for exploring new areas we had never been. I would always talk to him about how I imagined what all of this land was like long before all of the houses and development took place. To imagine going back to this same spot 10-20-30-40 years ago and envisioning it then. We both found it fascinating that there were a ton of gravel roads and places that were here that had disappeared. This gave us the need to explore to the fullest. The thought that many of the places available to us at present might not be around in the future, led us to construct adventures that would last a lifetime, for both of us. Whether it was creating a route on a map or adventuring without any planning, we made some great memories together. We might not be able to embark on these adventures. We were healthy and strong now! Carpe diem became our motto.
Chris helped give me a better understanding of building wealth and composure. When I first met him, I was living with my parents racing bicycles and going to college. I didn’t have a steady income, and I was thrifty when it came to bike equipment. I didn’t really buy myself nice things. As I began to grow my coaching business and start to create a living for myself, I began to develop a different view on money. I then started and investment portfolio including Crypto. When I first go into it, I started with a simple approach of comparing what I could do on my own compared to a high yields savings account. While I started off doing better by managing my own portfolio, I then started to take some losses. Chris directed me to Gareth Soloway and Verified Investing where I began to learn important fundamentals and how to review the charts. I loved the numbers and data. Even still, I started doing daily check in’s and found myself spending a lot of time looking at the charts. When I’d talk to Chris about it, it always went back to take a step back and chill. Stop looking at it every day. Take a longer-term approach to it. Don’t worry about the beginning loses. You’ll get back on track. Zoom out on the chart, consolidate the amount of positions you have. Things began to improve. Though I knew this was a long-term process and that I would get better.
I started to grow out of my as frugal mindset and began spending money on more quality products and time. Taking my fair share on outings with friends and more of a long-term friendship style approach. The friendship and spending money began to improve from where it once was when it started. Chris also helped change my relationship with Alcohol. Chris had and addictive past and had some problems with alcohol and drugs back in his 20’s and 30’s. He got through it and became sober. I didn’t start drinking alcohol until age 24 and it didn’t pick up to a heavier amount until age 31. In 2023-2024 I began to push the limits more and more with it. I always would drink in front of Chris and have beers after rides and he never thought much of it. When it got to be a bit excessive and my cholesterol levels were reading higher at the doctor’s visits, I made a challenge to myself to take a break on my own terms. It has just been 3.5 months of no alcohol or energy drinks. Consequently, my blood results all came back healthier while my diet remained the same. Moreover, I wanted to prove to myself that I would still do all the things I enjoy and experience the joy of driving down the highway with my favorite music and cruising on my motor bike and not have to have alcohol to enjoy it. To have good results in my business, events, or in my stocks and not drink excessively to celebrate. I would check in with Chris each week and tell him the new milestone I reached. I was happy to have a buddy that was proud of my goal I set for myself too.
Not all of our friendship was just about riding bikes and making money. We had a way to laugh and the most ridiculous things that others may not find that funny. We had an ability to saturate and filter faces and make videos of stocks dropping drastically. We had the ability to make up fake names for people on the spot. We had the ability to re-create voices and make up characters and stories. I would copy his text and play it back to him in a foreign voice. A lot of this didn’t make much sense to other people though we found it very entertaining.
Chris will certainly never be forgotten and I will dedicate that Foreverwild spirit in him to live on. Foreverwild for me started with a simple Florida Panther shirt I got in 6th grade. The shirt said “Foreverwild” on it. At the time, there were less than 50 Florida Panther’s left on the planet. I knew that even if the animal were to go extinct, that the wild spirit of that animal would live on for generations to come. Similar to the wild spirit of Chris that I’d want to live on through others’ adventures. I had told Chris one day that I wanted to write a book stemming back to the trip to Alaska and back with my uncle. I had thought of something titled “This could be a one and done”. Chris said you should call it “Foreverwild”. Because of my friendship with Chris, I have a new take on life, the want to explore and take advantage of opportunities while I am healthy and strong, and not to waste a second of my life. Never to stop exploring. Living each moment knowing that it could be the last time I’ll ever get to do something. Living Foreverwild.
February 1, 2025- Collide
I’d never imagine having my best friends blood in my mouth and watch him die right in front of me in such a quiet yet impactful crash. It replays in my mind like a scene from a final destination movie. Envisioning going down the golf slope with all possible outcomes of what could go wrong and right. Though we both saw exactly what we were about to go down on our way up, somehow that was not enough. The exhilaration and being lost in the moment with one wrong path ended in a deadly crash.
It was a perfect evening with temperatures in the low 70’s with sunshine and blue sky. I had just discovered this new beautiful hilly golf course that I had seen bits and pieces of before. I began to see it more and more from afar as the Clermont Turnpike construction and houses began to take over the countryside and orange groves. The rolling bumpy golf course felt like a little Florida ski slope for mountain bikes. The big palm trees rising up to the top of the hill where the clubhouse stood looked like a road from California. Chris really liked the view of the tall palm trees. The whole golf course had these beautiful horizon views where you could see for miles and miles with downtown Orlando and Lake Apopka in the distance. “Hey Kit, wait until you see some of hills at this golf course”. We cruised around going up and down the golf course hills for a good 45 minutes just before the sun went down. We had planned on doing one more run in the golf course then making our way over to Sugarloaf Mountain to check out the under construction Hancock Road north.
As we made our way into the start of Tee 9, Chris said: “I love this road to nowhere look”. This was the golf course sidewalk that turned sharply and you could not see what was around the bend. We started our go-pros and made our way up the tee 9 sidewalk climb. On our way up, we saw sandpits that were primarily on our left. The view looking up from being down made them clear, though the angle from up top later as I’d discovered, looked like just a drop off the face of the hill, with one side being the green down slop, and one side and 8 foot drop into a sand pit. You had to have that spot locked in your mind to avoid when going down to avoid the fall. We continued on to the top going up the 15% grade sidewalk. Chris mentioned that if he had his Mountain bike, it would be a fun idea to try to ride down and clear one of the sand pits. Chris had a way of wanting to really capture a moment and had this idea that one of us would lie down in the sand pit and the other would ride/fly over the pit coming down on the Mountain bike. This of course, would be rehearsed and planned out. The guy underneath would get a video of the other guy flying over. I had been hesitant of this idea since breaking my wrist recently in June, 2024. I had imagined that one of us would end up falling into the other guy in the sand pit and we’d both get hurt.
At the top of the hill near the golf driving range, we were setting up to go down the hill we had just come up. We saw a lady walking her dog that was going into the sidewalk that we would be going down. We decided to wait to let her walk far enough up the path so we did not startle her on the way down. Just before we were about to go, an employee with the range began to approach us. That’s when I said: “lets go kit”. We had already been there about 5 minutes just taking in the view and waiting for the clearing. Almost like picking the right wave on the ocean shore when it was just right. I took off first and Chris followed shortly behind. Chris ended up starting about 100 meters behind. When I got about midway down the hill and next to the sand pit, I looked back and saw Chris towards the top of the climb. About 400 meters later, I looked back and he had disappeared from the horizon. I had though perhaps a guy on a golf cart-security had stopped him on the way down. After waiting for a minute, I called him a couple times with no pick up. I then started to ride back up the climb and still did not see him anywhere. I began to ride back up to where we started and then saw a ranger on a golf cart who stopped and asked if I was a resident of the neighborhood. I told him no though was just riding on the paths and enjoying the views. He ended up being friendly and let me continue to ride on the golf course paths. He had said he got a call about some kids playing on the course on bikes though wasn’t worried when he saw me. I then looked at Chris’s location on the “Find My Phone” and saw he was hovered over a sand pit. I had though he was just stopped to get some pictures.
Rolling up to the sandpit was a sight I’ll never forget. Chris was lying on his back with a pool of blood next to his head. I started screaming in horror and went up to him to see his unresponsive body on his back with the blood in his mouth and out of his ear. His neck was twisted and his teeth were out of place in his mouth. I felt no pulse and he was not breathing. His music was still playing. His go-pro was still recording. While in a panic, I called 911 and the lady on the phone walked me through CPR and said to stay on the line until paramedics arrived. While I did not lose hope right there, I also began to think that I may have just seen my best friend dead right in front of me. I had his blood in my mouth and on my face and jersey. When the paramedics arrived, they had asked what happened and about how long it had been since he fell. I heard one of them say: “it looks like he’s been dead for 10 minutes”; which was the time it was since he had fallen. I had tried to act like I did not hear that though my heart began to drop into my stomach and the gravity of the situation began to set in. A cop pulled me over to the side to not watch the scene of the paramedics working on him. He began talking to me to try to take my mind off of it. The paramedics then loaded his body into the Ambulance and took him off to the South Lake Hospital while I got a ride with the cop.
While at the hospital in the waiting room, I downloaded the footage from Chris’s Go-Pro. It was 36 seconds from the time he left the top of the hill to when he landed head first in the sand pit. I watched the crash over and over and tried to envision the angle at which he had hit and how he took all the impact on his head and neck. I was wondering how he had that much blood coming out of his head. I was still trying to make sense of it all. I then played back the video from the start with the volume up higher this time. I took note of the song playing on the way down and then right when he had hit the ground. I then played it again and heard him say something to the lady walking the dog. I had first thought the lady said something to him like he couldn’t be riding on the golf course but then I listened it again. It sent shrivers down my spine when I heard it again. “You only live once ma’am”. He was then laughing the rest of the way until he fell into the pit which came up abruptly unplanned for him. The green horizon looked like it just went off the edge of the face of the earth. Though to the left it was the green slope of the golf course and to the right was the sand pit. You could see it up close though from afar was just the drop. “You only live once ma’am”. He was just living in the moment and laughing that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing and enjoying it. I then downloaded my video I got on the way down and consequently, I began laughing at almost the same time he did right when we passed the lady walking the dog. I had already though of a fake name for the lady and was going to share it with him when I saw him again.
While I was in shock and couldn’t believe me eyes, the scene was also very peaceful. There was no suffering or moaning. It was quiet in the sand pit. The video cuts right from the crash to complete silence other than his music. That song “Get Lucky” by “New Young Pony Club” is one I’ll remember forever. I did not even realize he was there though I had ridden almost 20 feet from it on my way back up to search for him. It was almost like Chris was in the sand pit lying in peace. His brother John would later say that it looked like Jesus on the cross. I had imagined Chris would have wanted to even get a drone shot of the scene from 30 feet in the air. It was a scene I would have imagined in a music video or movie that ended in a graceful sentimental death. I had thought back to the final scene of the movie “Into the Wild”. I had thought of the song “Skin of the Night” by M83 and the “Neon Demon” movie. I had though that crashing in a golf course sand pit wouldn’t be such an abrupt ending.
I wanted to take a reverse button and whined it back to the top of the hill and decide not to go down that way. I wanted to let the employee stop us and not let us ride down the hill. I had a flashback to driving home from a ride through the Green Swamp Forest on highway 471 when I played the song “Time Won’t Let Me Go” by “The Bravery”. I had told Chris that I both love and hated that song. I had first heard the song in one of my favorite movies “Never Back Down”. In the start of the movie the main character loses his dad in a drunk driving crash where his dad was driving and he survived. “If I could do it all again. I’d go back and change everything. But time won’t let me go”. I’d listen to that song and then come back to the present moment to remind myself that the song is what I have left behind as I’ve grown and matured. For all that I have learned and implemented into my life goes against everything in that song. That all I have is the present moment and that what has happened in my life couldn’t have happened any other way. That everything that has happened, every person I’ve met, every experience I’ve had, every win and lose, all of it has made me into the person I am today. There are no take backs in life. Taking ownership for every single decision made in life will give the most peace. Always reminding myself to enter back into the present moment, the only moment that exists.
Arriving back home late that night around midnight was another moment I’ll never forget. My dogs Tofu and Howey smelled Chris on me. When I took my jersey off that had Chris’s blood on it, they licked the blood and were probably wondering where Chris was at. They knew I was devastated. Just before that ride, Chris had taken a minute to pet Tofu. He always had a special fondness of Tofu who was affectionate towards him. Chris would always say: “my precious baby girl tofu”. Then, I though back to Rupert who was Chris’s 14 year old Corgi who had passed away which was like his son. Chris had a special place in his heart for animals and dogs. Before going to sleep, I then thought of the Bruce Springsteen song “We Are Alive”. It always brings back an everlasting appreciation of life. Thankful to be Alive. It felt like my buddy was just on the battlefield and died next to me. A silent battlefield we willingly walked into with no one around to blame.
While there is no going back in time to change anything, I would hope that Chris’s wild spirt lives on in us all. The wildness to never stop exploring. To never take life for granted and always be cautious. Take a few extra minutes to review something you’ve never done before. Don’t get greedy or cocky. If you got lucky before, be grateful for that and be ok walking away. Trying to go back to replicate something risky or dangerous is where greed arises. Though never be afraid to go try something new or explore. Imagine: “what if this were the last time I may ever be here?”. Knowing that if this was the last time I may ever be here that I must live every second to the fullest”. If you’re thinking you will get another chance to go back and do it again, it may never happen. I carried that mindset with me from my adventures with Uncle Danny to Alaska and Back. I will always think back and are grateful that I went after my dreams when I did. In retrospect, I will not get to be able to go back and do that again with my Uncle. That’s how Chris and I rode every ride. That’s how I live my life with opportunities that arise. The conditions may not be the same and we may not have the luck on our side if we go back. Chris’s spirit will always be “Foreverwild” and will continue to live on through us. The wildness that will always be perpetual throughout the universe.
R.I.P Chris Tricoli
