My Visit to Ledaig Heavy Athletics
by Thom Van Vleck
Banner that hangs in the Ledaig gym
Recently I got to make my first trip to Ledaig since Dave built his new facility. This is Dave Glasgow’s family gym. I say family gym because it belongs to his whole family. You drive down that road and it’s hard to figure out which “Glasgow” to stop at as each mailbox has that name on it. But if you know Dave and he counts you as a friend, then you are family, too! This sits on some family property about 30 miles from Wichita, Kansas but really miles away from anyone! It is near Rainbow Bend, Kansas and if you can find that then you are right up there with Columbus and Magellan as an explorer. Dave used to train in a round metal tank that would literally roast you on a hot day. The frame for the gym was put up years ago, I believe Dave’s Dad had built a metal frame and never finished it. Dave got it done and there is a gym, shop and garage housed in the large building. You could park a dozen cars in there if it were cleared out, but Dave has a quarter sectioned off for the gym that is walled in and the rest is full of tools, cars, and projects!
Dave Glasgow cutting some steel rod in his gym to make stakes for Highland Games trigs.
I have been to many gyms overthe years and to me my favorites also include other “manly” pursuits. My Uncle Phil has a reloading room attached to his gym. Al Myers has a full scale metal shop in his gym. Randy Richey (https://www.usawa.com/omega-force-christian-strongman-team/) has one of the coolest gyms I’ve ever seen with the a massive metal shop. Hard to believe anyone could top Al’s gym, but Randy just might! I can’t top those guys but my gym has a workshop as well. Dave has entered the fray with a huge workshop area with the ability to cut, weld, and shape metal along with working on the two antique corvettes parked in his gym.
Some old school Eleiko bumpers at Ledaig
Another hallmark of a cool gym in my book is to have historical and cool things to lift. Ledaig has many things, old and new to lift. I was especially salivating over his Eleiko plates. They are old and well used, but still cool nonetheless. Dave has some equipment that he has used for many, many years in his gym and you can just feel the positive “mojo” in there!
If you get a chance to make it to a USAWA meet at Ledaig, it’s worth the journey. You can fly into Wichita and that gets you close. But if you drive there just know this: The cell phone reception is not very good and on more than one occasion I have fielded a call from a lost lifter driving the countryside looking for “Rainbow Bend”. Be sure you know how to get there! Because it truly can be one of those places that “you can’t get there from here”!