Bike Ride One

As everyone knows I am very prone to self destructive tendencies which lead to unspeakable sorrow and a great deal of apologies. I guess it is one of my “character defects.” Put me in a situation that seems relatively safe and I am prone to making it into something that could be rather dangerous to say the least. Here is yesterday’s example:

I was writing an email to the wonderful Helen Hoyt and my phone rang (a very rare occurrence). It was Colin, the husband of the Natalee, the woman whom I replaced.

Hey Scott, I am in your neighborhood and wondered if you you would like to go for a bike ride?

Sure.

So I throw on some clothes and grabbed some supplies and took my bicycle down the stairs to meet him. This in itself is dangerous as my stairs are VERY NARROW. I have been told that to move furniture into this space you must do so via a window.

So we start riding and there is some small talk. They had their baby; a boy Benjamin, mother and child are well. There are comments about how I am holding up, adjusting, dealing with my students, etc. We ride along the beach and then head to this fishing village that I had seen before. It was at this moment that he took an unexpected turn and we headed down a long, winding road. I had been down this road before and after a bit of color near some small rice farms it finally came to a cross roads.

Everyone knows it was at the crossroads that Robert Johnson sold his soul to learn to play guitar. For one brief moment you will be the greatest guitar player on the planet but you will die a horrible death (I think he was poisoned) at a young age (27, the age of immortality for all rock stars) and, with luck, be remembered for the legacy that you left behind. Naturally there is a problem here as I can’t play music and I am pushing hard towards 40. Ah, the sadness of not having a beautiful corpse.

So at this crossroads everyone must make a choice and, as the story would have it, Colin offered me one:

The road on the left will take you home. It is pretty straightforward. The road on the right is one that will take us to _____ beach and there are a few hills. It is about a 45 minute trip but it is pretty and there is a nice place to rest at the mid way point. The choice is yours.

Here two other points should be noted:

1. When I lived on Washington Street I rode to work most days. It was exactly six miles each way and my best time was about 20:30. On average I would do it in about 24:30 so I am not afraid of riding. I have a nice, sturdy bicycle (I call it an urban assault vehicle) and I am rather comfortable while on it. The only problem that I have is that my bicycle has a saddle bag filled with h2o and other shit that I need to survive. Thus, my bike is rather heavy.
2. Colin has a VERY LIGHT bicycle. He has also taken off the derailleur and has it down to a single speed (something that I think favors well for me as I have 27 gears to choose from). He has been riding this route for over a year and, it turns out, some of it is his daily ride to work. I still think that the single speed thing makes him completely mad, so I have no real worries.

Naturally, I choose to go right.

This makes me a complete ASSHOLE. I have only had a couple of cookies for breakfast. I went out on a 20 mile ride the night before. I smoke. I’m old. I have only been riding about three times since I have been here. He’s young. He rides this every day. I have a saddle bag filled with heavy shit. I am doomed.

Sure, I was rather excited when we got to the top of the first hill and I had been there a few days before. This can’t be too bad. But my greatest fears began to rise when he continued on. On my trip before I had turned back at this point as my camera was pissing me off and I couldn’t take any more pictures. I turned back, Colin pressed forward. He not only pressed forward but his single speed self started to pull away. It was at this point that every Camel I ever smoked came back to bite me on the ass and legs and lungs and I started to pray for death. A quick and painless death. The hill looked as if it would never end and he kept pulling away.

At the crest he was waiting and when I finally caught up I told him of the previous trip and how I had turned back. He smiled and started up again.

MORE HILLS.

I did real well when I was going down the hills. That was sort of fun. The scenery was beautiful and there were many little houses and small farms and it was sunny and there wasn’t much traffic. I would get to the bottom of the hill and there would be a nice long stretch of winding road with small trees on either side of it and for about four minutes I would think that life is perfect and tranquil and that this is the way that things are supposed to be and then there would be another fuckin’ hill and I would want to spit blood and scream and rip off my flesh in huge chunks and strangle Colin (if I could actually catch him) and then this would pass as I would reach the crest.

This repeated itself for what seemed like forever. At this point I checked my odometer and realized that I had only been riding for about 18 minutes and only covered about 4 miles.

When we finally arrived at the “rest stop” it was closed. He was kind enough to let me catch my breath and to make me feel better he said that there is a guy who he rides with and he feels the same way: lagging behind, cursing, wishing he could cough up blood, etc. After about 10 minutes we continued.

We did find a place that was open and bought the Korean equivalent of Gatorade which was most wise.

This went on and on and then his wife called and said that if we wanted to we could come back to their place and have a piece of cake and see the baby. This sounded like a plan as, like the dog that I am, I can always be motivated by treats. So now we were riding towards a goal instead of me climbing hills for some untold reason.

The only problem with this is that we now had to ride on the highway to get their apartment. It was not too scary as it wasn’t like riding on the shoulder of I 69 (they don’t drive that fast here) but it was still a bit unnerving at first. Later he said that the only reason he choose that route is that he was beginning to feel sorry for me and that this way was nice and flat. Perfect.

Still, he was doing all of this with one gear. He also had shoes with bicycle cleats (that is an investment I need to make, seriously). He also, upon further examination, had calves the size of tree stumps. The man was a monster!! No one should have calves like that. No humans anyway.

So then we went to his apartment and I was allowed to catch my breath and see the baby (WAY TOO CUTE) and we spent the afternoon talking as various people came by to visit the baby. Natallee’s sister is a nurse and she took the month off to watch the delivery. She is from Alberta, very funny, and is simply trying to figure all of this out (we arrived about two days apart).

So, on the whole it was a swell day. Then came the point where I was smoking a Camel on the balcony and Colin said that I may want to hold off on that. Why, ask I. He then pointed off into the distance to another large road/hill that cut through two rather obnoxious hills, and said, with a sly smile, that I needed to ride up that if I wanted to get home. It turns out that cake and a nice snack of fried chicken (the Kentucky Colonel needs to stop by and take some notes: these folks got it going on) was simply to prepare me for the next phase of my trip. I still had another five miles to go and Colin, knowing that I can get lost at the drop of a hat (everyone seems to love the fact that I was hopelessly lost on my first night), was kind enough to draw a map. He even included arrows which showed what was uphill and down so I would know when my climbs actually came to an end.

Even with his map I got a bit turned around. No problem as I can now find my way around the neighborhood. I can even order food. Progress does involve baby steps.

To tie this up to how it started. I mean, all I had to do was say: Hey Colin, let’s take the easy way home. I haven’t had breakfast, need a shower, should brush my teeth, etc. It would have made so much sense. My idea of 12 miles in a nice straight shot where I can dart around traffic and jump on the curb and scare pedestrians. It is nice and comfortable. I like it. I can shift gears and ride with traffic and pass cars which are stuck at the light and know damned well that they are REALLY pissed off that they are stopped and I am moving fluidly. It is the one thing that I really seemed to do well (except for the time I got super hammered, wrecked and had my bike stolen – a story for another time, ask Dan C about it). And here I am thinking that I am on top of my game, that there is no way I could screw this shit up and with one “let’s do it the hard way” I am in a world with no control following some fat calved manic with one speed climbing hills that I could barely walk up.

I am not certain what the moral to the tale is but in the end I think that the Camels will have to stay in their box if I want to ride with today’s youth. That, dear reader, is easier said than done.

Peace,

sh