Tom Flournoy died in his sleep the morning of Oct. 27, 2024. He was 69.
He was born in Washington, D.C. After graduating from Woodbridge Senior Excessive Faculty and Previous Dominion College, he launched a profitable profession as an expert engineer, specializing in transportation tasks from planning to last design, in accordance with an announcement from his companion.
Initiatives he labored on included roadways, highways, bridges, transit amenities, commuter rail, and bike and pedestrian amenities. Many, if not most, had been within the D.C. space, together with Arlington County, which grew to become Tom’s house in 1989. In his final place as VP at STV Inc., Tom was instrumental in beginning and rising STV’s D.C. workplace, which continues to be thriving.
Tom was justifiably pleased with his profession as an engineer, throughout which he acted as a mentor to many youthful engineers, launching them on profitable careers of their very own. He favored to inform tales of the time he went to Saudi Arabia to show bridge engineering courses, and when touring, he made certain to level out fascinating bridges, a few of which he had labored on. However proud as he was of it, Tom’s profession was not the one focus of his life, in accordance with pals.
Upon retirement in 2015, Tom mirrored, “I grew to become rewired and self-contained, which is one other nice phrase. In bicycle touring it means you aren’t dependent. You might be self-contained and never counting on SAG (assist and equipment). And that’s how I’ll strategy the approaching years, rewired and self-contained! This isn’t meant to exclude my nice pals, previous, current and future, however extra the impartial spirit that I realized a very long time in the past after I rode solo throughout Italy in 1991!”
After retirement, Tom’s life targeted on two passions: opera and biking. Tom’s love of opera developed considerably late in life, however it was intense. Amongst his favorites had been La Boheme, Lakme, Billy Budd, and, final however not least, Wagner’s Ring Cycle. He was a long-time subscriber to the Washington Nationwide Opera. Most frequently together with his companion Laurent, he additionally attended performances at most of the nice opera homes of the U.S. and Europe, together with New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, London, Vienna, and Prague. His most up-to-date opera journey was to Berlin, to see the Deutsche Oper’s Ring Cycle. He was with Laurent on the Washington Nationwide Opera’s Wagner tribute on Oct. 26.
Firstly, although, Tom was an avid bicycle owner, particularly long-distance cycle touring. A number of years in the past, he stated, “I really feel ageless, or used to. Age does creep up on us. Feeling ageless could sound like an outdated metaphor however I attribute that feeling to my love of biking and, specifically, my love of long-distance cycle touring.”
Certainly, Tom beloved occurring lengthy bike excursions that always lasted weeks, both on his personal or with pals, particularly, in the previous few years, together with his shut pal Mark. Tom’s first huge bike tour was in 1988, when he first went to France together with his then vital different, Doug Wolfer, and two pals. They biked from Paris to Chartres, to the Loire Valley, and onto Vichy, Lyon, Dijon, and again to Paris. As Tom put it, after that journey, he was hooked. Since then, he returned to France a number of occasions and likewise toured in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, and, most lately, the Balkans from Vienna to Bucharest through Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria.
Within the U.S., Tom toured in Montana and Wyoming (an extension of Cycle Montana), Rhode Island, and Massachusetts (Windfall to Provincetown), North Carolina and Virginia (Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway), Tennessee to Louisiana (Natchez Hint Parkway and the Mississippi River Path to New Orleans), Vermont and New York (round Lake Champlain), the whole East Coast from Key West to Halifax (Canada), and a round loop by way of Canada beginning in Vermont that took him by way of Montréal, up the P’tit Prepare du Nord Rail Path, again right down to Ottawa, after which round lake Ontario, throughout the Erie Canal, down the Hudson River to New York, and from there, by way of New Jersey and Delaware to house, in Arlington. Tom additionally did many native rides within the DMV space. A few of his favorites took him to Rock Creek Park, Hains Level, and the encircling suburbs of Virginia and Maryland. For prolonged native rides, he beloved to go out west to the Marshall space to benefit from the mountains.
He was additionally an information geek. Since 2012, when he first began recording rides on Journey with GPS, he logged 1,533 rides with a distance of over 55,439 miles. He additionally climbed 2,597,322 ft, together with conquering two of the famed Swiss passes, Simplonpass and Grimselpass, on the ripe age of 61 on a totally loaded touring bike.
Biking was Tom’s ardour; he additionally needed it to be his legacy. So, in 2019, he arrange the “Bonsource Bicycle owner Fund” by way of the Arlington Group Basis. Bonsource was Tom’s biking deal with or nickname for a few years. The targets and goals of the Bonsource Bicycle owner Fund are to assist and encourage entry to bicycling for folks of all ages by way of, primarily, infrastructure tasks, but in addition by way of tangible and intangible applications. These may very well be infrastructure enhancements that make a major contribution to the bicycling community and are in want of funding in entire or partially; assist for extra routine however obligatory infrastructure enhancements; the renovation of upkeep or present bicycle infrastructure; and applications that encourage folks to take pleasure in bicycling or promote bicycling generally.
In the identical spirit, over the previous few years, Tom helped to instill a love of biking in native youth. He volunteered as a mentor and journey chief for Phoenix Bikes, a non-profit group whose mission is to coach youth, promote bicycling, and construct neighborhood. He was additionally a frequent “driver” for Arlington’s Escuela Key Bicibús (East), certainly one of three routes that helps elementary age college students get to their college by bicycle.
Tom was pre-deceased by his mother and father, John and Margaret Flournoy, his brother Kenneth, and his companion Doug Wolfer. He’s survived by his companion, Laurent Cartayrade; shut pal Mark Nguyen; and his instant household, together with his twin brother Doug, his brother John, and his sisters Mary Beth and Trudy, in accordance with the assertion from Cartayrade.
Family and friends will have fun Tom’s life on Nov. 23, 2024, beginning at 1 p.m., on the Lyon Park Group Middle, 414 North Fillmore St., in Arlington, Va. If in case you have a bicycling jersey, irrespective of how loud, be happy to put on it in his honor. With those that wish to be part of, some will journey the 1.2 miles from his residence at Hyde Park, 4141 North Henderson Highway, to the celebration, departing at 12:45 p.m.
Contributions in his reminiscence might be made to the Bonsource Bicycle owner Fund, bit.ly/bonsource.
