Robin Carpenter will be thinking of his former Masterman teacher as he conquers the Manayunk Wall

Robin Carpenter was riding his bike home from Julia R. Masterman School, pedaling along the Schuylkill River when a teacher stopped him.

He wasn’t in Kevin Saint Clair’s class, but he knew him. Everyone did. Saint Clair rode his bike to Masterman every day, hung his spandex in his classroom to dry, plucked food off students’ trays in the cafeteria, and once used a flat tire as a science lesson.

He was a legend in those halls.

Saint Clair asked Carpenter how his freshman year was going and what he thought about the soccer team. School was good, Carpenter said, but soccer was a flop. The teenager from Manayunk spent more time on the team’s bus to away games than he did on the field, subbing for just a few minutes once the outcome was decided.

Saint Clair coached the school’s cross-country team, a group of kids like Carpenter looking for their place. He never cut a runner, ended the season with a pasta dinner at his home in Chestnut Hill, and regularly won Public League titles. Saint Clair told Carpenter to give running a try.

“He said it’s not too late,” Carpenter said.

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So there was Carpenter in the pack of runners moving through the hills in Fairmount Park while Saint Clair rode his bike next to them. Legs heavy? Breath short? Don’t slow down, Saint Clair shouted as they neared the top of Lemon Hill. Speed up, the coach said as he reminded them they still had more to give even when the tank seemed empty.

Carpenter ran four seasons for Saint Clair, who died at 65 in November 2023 when he was hit by a car while riding his bike. The coach’s invite gave Carpenter a spot on the team while also providing the teenager the chance to begin a more than 15-year career cycling career that will take another climb Sunday up the Manayunk Wall when the Philadelphia Cycling Classic returns.

Carpenter grew up attending the race every summer and sold lemonade — people used to tell him he could make more if he added liquor — to fans as a kid. He rode his bike to school and won $15 after coming in third out of three riders as an 11-year-old. But Carpenter had no clue how to become a pro. And then he met Saint Clair, who invited him to ride with his team on the Main Line.

The teacher who urged him to run in Fairmount Park was soon teaching him the basics of cycling, a sport that would take Carpenter all over the world. It all started with a teacher giving him a chance.

“He forever lives on in my memory as the guy who pushed me forward into the sport,” the 34-year-old Carpenter said.

There were multiple ways for Carpenter to get home to Manayunk from Center City but The Wall — the uphill slog that feels like a roller-coaster climb — was the path to avoid. Finally, he gave it a try. The 11-year-old Carpenter, with his dad riding next to him, dug into the pedals of his Huffy that a neighbor gave him.

“We successfully made it up without stopping,” Carpenter said. “Huge accomplishment.”

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The Carpenters dropped themselves into Fairview Park where a neighbor asked why they were so exhausted. The Wall, they said. She told them about the amateur bike race happening in just a few hours. Carpenter was in.

“That was the beginning of it, sort of discovering that you could do something like this,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter latched on a few years later with Saint Clair, who was a member of the U.S. rowing team before turning to cycling when his back started to bother him. Saint Clair grew up in Logan and went to Cardinal Dougherty before earning degrees from Temple and St. Joseph’s. He taught at the Gesu School before moving to Masterman. He identified people by what parish they grew up in and asked people where they went to high school.

“Kevin was so Philadelphia,” his wife Ellen said.

Saint Clair loved his students, his wife said. He showed up at their doorsteps if their grades were struggling and once made parents cry at a conference by simply telling them that their boy who was getting in trouble was a good kid.

“No one had ever said that about their child,” Ellen Saint Clair said. “Kevin saw the good in him.”

The teacher didn’t know Carpenter would become a professional cyclist when he invited him to join the cross-country team. But he knew he would have a better time running in Fairmount Park than he would sitting on the bench at soccer games. That’s what Kevin Saint Clair was all about.

“He wanted to encourage everyone, those in the back of the pack and those in the front of the pack,” Ellen Saint Clair said. “He really valued a work ethic. You can be born with great talent but you can squander it. It was the kids who just had an indomitable spirit and gold standard of work ethic like Robin that he loved.”

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Kevin Saint Clair once missed being on the national team by one rower. The guy who bumped him off was someone he helped coach. The team won the world championship and Saint Clair was left out. It would have been easy to be bitter. But that wasn’t Saint Clair.

“He was proud of them,” Ellen Saint Clair said.

He loved seeing the success of the people he taught or coached. Maybe he played a part in it. He rooted for his runners to beat his old times and cheered on that boat he could have been in. So his wife knows how proud Saint Clair would be this weekend to see Carpenter pedaling his bike up the Manayunk Wall.

“It’s so heartbreaking for me that the Classic is back and Robin’s in it and Kev’s not there,” Ellen Saint Clair said. “But I know Robin will be thinking of Kevin.”

Ellen Saint Clair isn’t sure yet where she’ll be Sunday when the race returns to Philadelphia. Maybe she’ll be rowing on the Schuylkill when the cyclists pass as she met her husband there when they were both training at the Vesper Boat Club. Or maybe she’ll find a spot near Lemon Hill. But she knows where the old coach would be. He’d be standing at the top of The Wall, reminding Carpenter that he had more to give. That was how Saint Clair coached his runners but also how he lived his life. There was always more to give.

“He wanted these kids to feel like they were a part of something bigger than themselves and to challenge themselves. Kev knew the value of athletics beyond what your body can do. Just how it builds confidence and how it develops the individual. He had so many first-time athletes on his team and he loved it,” Ellen Saint Clair said. “I hope if Robin’s legs are like lead and his back is hurting, he just taps into Kev. ‘You have more. Go now.’ He would be so proud of him.”