Balancing Act

The Master of Multi-Tasking.

- Devon O' Neil

NOTHING REVEALS A MAN’S CHARACTER LIKE A BROKEN printer. Mike McCormack stands above his unit with a look of disbelief. It is the final Friday of September 2015, and the first day of the inaugural Outlier Offroad Festival in Vail, Colorado. McCormack conceived the event and it’s one he thinks could look like the long running Sea Otter Classic in just three years.

Already nothing has gone right. The lanyards got shipped to the wrong place; the online comp code for shop techs failed, which means they are all on their way to register for today’s 2016 bike demo in person; a rack went missing from the photo shoot; and he just realized there’s soap in his water bottle.

McCormack’s phone rings. He answers: “Can I call you back in 10 minutes? Or actually, can you call me back in 10 minutes?”

Six people are standing in line to talk to him, each seemingly with his or her own logistical emergency. A pile of zip ties, a cup of coffee and an untouched foil-wrapped bagel sit on the table next to his laptop. He looks at the printer, which is refusing to print double-sided waivers. He Googles the problem and grins while the page loads. “If all else fails, pick it up, drop it, pick it up again,” he says. Then he turns back to the printer. “All right, sweetheart, you and I both know you have paper.”

Finally he finds it: one sheet of white poking its head where it shouldn’t be, “disrupting the sensor,” he says. The printer resumes its job, and McCormack begins the line-whittling process in front of him.