He rides a BMX bike all over Charlotte, every day, with a smile. Who is this mohawked man?

William Glenn Bartley is, quite possibly, the most famous cyclist in Charlotte.

Or ... well ... maybe “famous” isn’t quite the right word, since it’s likely very few people in the city have ever heard that name before. “Most recognizable” might be the more appropriate label. Although frankly, perhaps the best way to describe Glenn (he prefers his middle name) is like this: He’s not just a guy who rides all over the area on a kids’ BMX bike with a backpack on his back, a mohawk on his head, and a big, toothy grin often spread across his face.

He’s the guy.

Yes, if you live or work in Charlotte and have spent enough time driving around the area, there’s a good chance you’ve noticed this middle-aged man pedaling up an urban sidewalk or down the sides of rural roads on the outskirts.

And if you’ve seen him once, you’ve seen him a hundred times.

He’s been spotted riding his little Diamondback all over Charlotte, but also in Concord, in Mint Hill, in Matthews, in Indian Trail, in Belmont, in Gastonia, and in South Carolina cities including Fort Mill, Rock Hill, Tega Cay as well as the town of Indian Land.

He’s out there whether it’s raining or shining, sweltering or freezing. He waves if you honk. He smiles sometimes even if there seemingly isn’t anything for him to be smiling at. And when he has to resort to riding in the street because there’s no sidewalk along the route he’s chosen, in this often-bike-unfriendly region, he takes his life into his own hands.

But while he has been a fixture in the area for years — a legend of sorts — he’s also a bit of a mystery.

Who is he? What’s his story? Where in the world is the guy going?

Over the years, they’re questions that have nagged at some. Deep in the recesses of Reddit, for instance, there’s a post from 2016 with a headline that reads “Who’s the mohawk biker?” The online discussion forum website City-Data has similar threads, too, from as far back as 2010.

While none of the respondents have concrete answers, it turns out they’re pretty easy to obtain. All a person would have to do is what Brian Talmadge Pearson did one day.

That is: Just ask.

‘I feel like I’m supposed to know him’

Talmadge (who also prefers his middle name) had seen this man on that bike many times over the years, and had increasingly become more curious about him. But he wasn’t so much curious about the bike.

“I was more curious about the fact that I saw him smiling ... always, nonstop. I was drawn to his smile,” Pearson explains.

“I think all humans are drawn to peace, contentment, joy. Not happiness, but real, true joy. And so anyway, I had seen him for years, and had a sense, if you will, that I would meet him at some point in time. I had a sense that I would not only meet him, but that we would be connected and friends.”

Now, Pearson knows what you’re thinking. He knows that may sound crazy.

Really, though, he’s just a regular, normal guy. Has worked remotely from Charlotte in sales and management positions for large paper manufacturing companies since moving here in 1998. Raised a now-college-age daughter as a single father living in a well-kept house on the edge of some woods near McAlpine Creek. Devoted to Christ.

On a few occasions, Pearson was in his car when he saw the man riding — but just couldn’t smoothly get to him because of traffic, and the challenge of pulling over, parking, and chasing him down.

Then one day in the summer of 2017, an opportunity presented itself randomly, suddenly.

He was sitting in his car in a parking lot outside of the old Qdoba restaurant at The Arboretum, talking on the phone to his father while waiting for food he’d ordered for his daughter Olivia, when he saw the mysterious, mohawked gentleman rolling his way. “Dad,” Pearson remembers saying, “I’m gonna have to call you back. I see a guy coming towards the car here that I’ve seen for years. And I feel like I’m supposed to know him.”

As the man was about to pass the car, Pearson put his window down and called out to him. The man stopped, waved, and smiled.

“Hey,” Pearson said to the man, gently, “I don’t want to scare you. But I’d like to meet you. I’ve seen you riding your bike around town for a number of years, and I just want to introduce myself and find out who you are, basically. I — and this is going to sound strange, but — I feel like we should know each other.”

“My name,” he told him, “is Talmadge Pearson.”

The man on the bike continued to beam. “Well,” he replied, “my name is Glenn. But people call me ‘Smiley.’”

The quick and easy forming of a bond

The two men just sat there in that parking lot chatting, Pearson in his car and Bartley on his bike.

At the time, Pearson was 48 years old and Bartley 55. Pearson would learn — among other things — that Bartley had grown up off Camp Greene Street in Charlotte’s Ashley Park neighborhood; that Bartley had been riding a bicycle around town since 1971, when he was just 9 years old; that Bartley was covering 25 to upwards of 50 miles a day on two wheels, mainly to get to public libraries and car dealerships so he could study up on the latest and greatest automobiles; and that Bartley lived by himself in an apartment uptown.

After about 20 minutes or so, Pearson realized he needed to get his daughter’s dinner back home to her. He also noticed it was starting to get dark outside, and that Bartley was dressed in dark clothing.

The conversation had been easy. Natural. There already was a bit of a bond.

So, without really thinking twice about it, Pearson offered: “We’re a good ways from downtown. If it wouldn’t make you uncomfortable, I could put your bike in my trunk and give you a ride home, for safety reasons. I’d just need to drop this food off to my daughter on the way.”

Bartley smiled and accepted. They continued their chat during the 30-minute drive, and upon arriving at Bartley’s building, Pearson gave Bartley his number and told him to call him if he ever needed anything.

And if by this point you’re wondering what, say, Pearson’s wife thinks of all of this ...

“I mean, it wasn’t that surprising,” says Lindsay Pearson, who at the time — in summer 2017 — was living in Orlando and dating Talmadge long-distance. “Talmadge is just interested in people, period. ... Talmadge will talk to anyone. ... One of the things that really attracted me to Talmadge was how he found value in people that most others might think had nothing to offer.”

That truly is the best explanation for why Talmadge Pearson hung up with his dad and let his daughter’s food get cold so he could strike up a conversation with Bartley.

“Some humans become invisible to the general public,” Pearson explains, building on what his wife said. “I think that every human life has value. And there’s a story there, if we’re willing to sit long enough to hear it. The common threads are undeniable for all of us. All it took was just a handful of minutes to sit with him ... to find out what those common threads were.”

Shortly after that first chance encounter, Bartley called the number Pearson had given him.

‘He probably knows more than half our team’

Bartley is, if nothing else, a creature of habit.

Virtually every day, he gets out of bed with a plan in mind of where he wants to go and what he wants to accomplish — and oftentimes it revolves around what he calls “his research.” Research on “future cars,” mainly (i.e. makes and models of cars that are being developed but not yet in production); although he also has a strong interest in gathering background on local and regional development projects.

He hits the streets early because he often plans journeys that are relatively lengthy for a guy making them on a BMX bike. Those include multiple 25-mile round trips per week to and from the Matthews Library, which he favors because it’s “nice and quiet,” even though there are closer branches.

There, he’ll spend hours surfing the internet for news about cars or new development projects, printing out the information he wants to take home to file away, and interacting with the staff when he runs into questions about his Google searches or his printouts.

“He’s been coming here longer than I’ve worked here,” says Les Hutchens, who has worked at Matthews Library since 2014 and is currently the branch manager. “He loves to talk to us and just kind of shoot the breeze, he’s very pleasant to interact with ... and he’s really informed. He knows a lot of stuff about what’s going on in the area, and ... a strong knowledge of the local layout of roads and geography — which I guess kind of makes sense, considering how he gets around using his bike.”

Bartley has plenty of other stops on his circuits, from favorite grocery stores and diners to development-project sites, as well as an assortment of bike shops he likes to drop in on. But he also almost always ends up at a car dealership somewhere.

It’s the brochures he wants. He grabs them off the racks, takes them home, studies them, files them away.

And like he does at the library, Bartley loves to talk to dealership staffs and just kind of shoot the breeze.

Says Melissa Miller, who’s worked at Land Rover Charlotte on Independence Boulevard for more than 15 years and thinks he’s been visiting their showroom since before she joined the team: “He’d always hang around long enough to impress the salespeople with his knowledge. He knows so much about these cars, it’s wild.”

“We ought to hire him,” she adds, with a laugh. “He probably knows more than half our team here.”

But other than that, Miller says, they don’t know much at all about him. “He’s kind of a mystery to us, to be honest.”

Just in case you were wondering ...

Here are some other answers to questions that might be on your mind.

• Bartley, now 62, has some degree of autism and other mental health conditions, but he lives alone and takes care of himself. He doesn’t work, making ends meet in part via a modicum of government assistance.

• He says he is capable of driving, but chooses not to because he has a fear of reckless and distracted drivers. And while he understands those drivers can also hurt him on a bike — in September 2020, for instance, he wound up in a neck brace in the hospital after a Nissan Altima hit him on Morehead Street — he calls biking “good therapy … and it’s good to help stamina and stuff. That’s what keeps me in shape.”
  
  

• He has stuck with a kids’ BMX bike over a bike with multiple gears that could get him places faster because “I like the simplicity. It’s small for combat, getting around traffic, and just simple. ... I’m riding so much, I don’t want to go into downtime where I have to repair an expensive bike. ... I have to keep that bike running on the road.” He also says he just feels more comfortable being lower to the ground.

• He favors the mohawk because “I want to run cool and keep the hair out of my eyes.”

• He really is as upbeat as his countenance would suggest. Among his many mottoes is this one: “Think of the positive. Don’t look at your negatives. You dwell on negatives, you go down. Don’t go to the bottom, go up. Get in the middle and go up. Lift it up. Think of your positives.”

As for his relationship with Talmadge Pearson? Once Bartley reached back out to Pearson — shortly after their initial meeting in the Arboretum parking lot — they started hanging out more regularly; and while their relationship may have started in an unorthodox fashion, they became friends in much the same way anyone becomes friends.

Enjoyment of one another’s company. A mutual respect and admiration. Shared values and beliefs. Those common threads.

“I mean, you meet somebody,” Pearson says, “and usually you know in a short period of time, This is somebody I’m drawn to, or, This is somebody that I’m not necessarily gonna spend that much time with. And Glenn just has a very easygoing, accepting, kind spirit. He’s exceptionally honest. He’s exceptionally positive and adaptable. So he has qualities and characteristics — traits of his very being — that I’m drawn to. These are traits that I want in my life. So, that’s why we’re friends.”

Adds Lisa Pearce, who owns the South End Exchange consignment shop and befriended Bartley through Pearson: “I think it’s a very, very special relationship that they have. And I think that they are good for each other, because I think, you know, Talmadge leads a very busy life — he travels a lot — and I think Smiley kinda grounds him a little bit.

“And I think Talmadge helps him. I think they probably ground each other. Because Smiley can get pretty worked up about stuff and obsessive about things. ‘Things are very urgent.’ ... And Talmadge is able to calm him down and help him through those difficult times.”

Bartley, whose parents have passed and whose only sibling lives in a group home, didn’t have much of a support system or close relationships before he met Pearson. Now, Bartley spends holidays and birthdays at the Pearsons’ home.

Not only are the two men in contact pretty much every day, but they refer to each other as brothers.

‘I don’t want anything to happen to you’

And as his brother, Talmadge worries about Smiley’s safety out on the roads.

“Obviously,” Pearson says, “anybody out there riding a bicycle — especially at night, it’s that much more dangerous. So we talk a lot about making use of the sidewalks, wearing bright colors, this, that and the other.”

Bartley squirms in his seat a little.

“Well, I just love ya,” Pearson says. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I know he wants me to be safe,” Bartley says.

“At the same time, I get it,” Pearson continues. “You get out there, you’re doing your car research, you get carried away and next thing you know, it’s dark. I get it.”

The good news is that more and more, if for some reason he isn’t going to make it back before dark, Bartley will put his bike on a bus and pay the fare home. The bad news is he doesn’t wear a helmet, and even during the day — even though he tries to use back roads when possible and never gets on interstates — he still sometimes can be found biking in the street.

Pearson isn’t the only one who worries about him, either.

“Several years ago,” says Hutchens, the Matthews Library branch manager, “I saw him riding down the side of Highway 74, and was slightly concerned about him, you know, with traffic.”

Pearce, the South End Exchange owner, says she’s often found herself trying to recommend routes for him to take that are less-busy than the ones he typically favors. “He definitely does not,” she says, “put safety first.”

It’s actually why Talmadge Pearson agreed to participate in a story. He weighed it cautiously at first, in the interest of protecting Bartley’s privacy, knowing that his BMX-biking friend would follow his lead on the decision.

But Pearson ultimately thought it could do more good than harm.

“If people get anything out of this story, I hope it’s Let’s pay attention to human beings,” Pearson says, his gaze fixed on his friend — his brother — Glenn Bartley. “We might find value everywhere. ... The more people in Charlotte that see this article the better, because I think it means more people are gonna fall in love with you, and be more concerned with your safety, and be looking out for you.”

As the words “people are gonna fall in love with you” spill out of Pearson’s mouth, a certain great-big expression blooms on Bartley’s face.

You surely can guess what it was.