And by that I mean the bike saddle. Cycling is a pretty recent obsession of mine; I really only started riding seriously late this summer. In fact, it sort evolved in tandem (see what I did there?) with my interest in geocaching. The logic was basically this: AJ and I thought it was pretty cool to go real-world treasure hunting with a GPS, but we thought it was kind of lame if you just drove to the spot, parked, walked five feet, and found the thing. It was about adventure, so we decided to do it on our bikes.
Fast forward to Wilmington, NC a month or two later, and I was still doing the same thing. Pick a geocache, ride to it, find it, ride home. But I was also already riding for riding’s sake, though these rides were still a minority. Eventually, it got to the point where some of the caches took so long to find and were so close to home, that I was spending more time searching and less time riding. There was a moment where I realized geocaching was just getting in the way of what I really wanted to do: ride.
So now geocaching has fallen somewhat to the wayside in favor of more serious and lengthy riding. Since I was unemployed until very recently, I’ve been doing quite a lot of riding and I thought I would share some stories, and do it – just for fun – in a countdown format.
Honorable Mention: A few days before I drove down to NC I still had the bike rack on the car with my brother’s and my bikes attached to the top. I drove to the mall to buy a wireless router, and, forgetting the bikes, drove under a low overpass. I was alerted to my folly by a loud sound that went approximately like this: KKKKHHHHHRRRRRR-BAAH! The sound in my head went approximately like this: FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU… I got out of the car to Incredible-Hulk the rack, which was more or less in one piece, sitting smack-dab in the middle of road with the bikes still attached, out of the way. As I hefted the mass of metal up into the air the woman in the car behind me mouthed the words, “You can’t park there.” I was never so glad to be leaving the Garden State behind.
5. The other day I was stopped at a red light next to a guy on a Harley-Davidson. This guy fit the biker profile very well; he was wearing a leather handkerchief on his head like a pirate, and I could see a tattoo snaking around his neck from under his jacket collar. He gave me a knowing look and then said, “Getting to be too cold to ride.” I said something to the effect of, “Not today, thank god.” Then the light turned green and the biker gave me a two-fingered salute and rode off.
4. A few months ago, I rode about 20 miles to meet Rachel at less touristy beach. On the way through a little beach town called Kure Beach, I looked over at the parking lot of a convenience store just in time to see one guy pull another guy out of the front seat of an SUV and sucker-punch him in the jaw. A girl was screaming in the passenger’s seat. I didn’t stop.
3. I was riding my regular route about a month ago when I suddenly started bobbing violently up and down as I pedaled. I stopped to check the rear tire and found it was almost completely flat. Luckily I had a spare tube in my saddle bag. I sighed and settled down for my first-ever, on-the-road flat tire repair. I flipped my bike upside down and set about disengaging the wheel from the chain (first time for that, too). As I was sitting cross-legged with the wheel in my lap, working the tire away from the rim, another cyclist rode by and asked if I needed help. I told him no thanks. I had the tube replaced and the wheel back in place in less than fifteen minutes. I was on top of the world.
2. A few weeks later, that familiar bobbing sensation was back, and this time I didn’t have a spare tube on me. Rachel picked me up and swung me by the bike shop to pick up a new tube. At home, I replaced the tube, and as I was pumping the tire back up, I heard the distinct sound of the bead of the tire coming away from the rim. I could see the tube starting to bulge out from behind the tire, forcing the tire away from the wheel. Just as the words “I should probably let some air out before the tube explodes,” it did just that. I was inside and the sound was like a bomb going off. Even in the kitchen Rachel was covering her ears. I was reminded of the movie Children of Men when Julianne Moore says something to the effect of, “That ringing in your ears is sort of like your ear cell’s swan song.” The gash I blew in the tube was almost a foot long.
1. It was the home stretch of my usual route and I was coming up on a pair of cyclists, who were riding abreast of each other. As I got closer to them, I realized there was one of those little kid seats attached to the back of both bikes, complete with a little kid each. They were taking their time, so I decided to pass them. I checked behind me and there was a Jeep a good distance away, so I went for it. As I drew level with them I turned to smile and wave at the little kids. I was mid-wave when the silence-shattering sound of a horn being laid upon rent the air as the guy in the Jeep swung way out into the oncoming lane to pass the three of us. Without thinking, I returned my waving hand to the handlebars and offered the other one up to the Jeep guy in the form of a certain finger.
It wasn’t until I turned and saw that I was now level with whom I presumed to be the father of the kids that I realized what I had done. I looked at him in horror, expecting him to admonish me for being so profane in plain view of his impressionable toddlers. Then he smiled and said, “Good for you, buddy.” His exact words. A minute or two and one stoplight later, I was riding the adrenaline high from being so impulsive (which I seldom am) and the vindication of the father’s approval. I realized – or managed to convince myself – that my torso hand been between the offending finger and the naive eyes of those kids. Worked off my nerves by riding into town and back instead of going home.
I’ve got a bunch more little saddle-back stories, but I fear that I ramble too much, so I’ll just have to publish another installment down the road.
