You know, they say there are four horsemen of the apocalypse. They say this. But I did not see a single horse last friday afternoon--not one foreboding pony to tell me that the trip to race in Pensacola Beach was DOOMED. There were, however, signs. Yes, I will be the first to admit--I missed the metaphorical signs. I don't know how this is possible, given my starving-artist-writer-blogger profession--but it happened.
It began Wednesday evening...I was leveling up my sneak skill. Don't judge me.
DING, went the lizard phone. I wavered to pick it up, and I had been right to--my ride fell through and I had to find a new one. What to do!? I quickly finagled other arrangements. This was the first sign. Surely the first sign! But I thought it inconsequential.
This part of the story is boring, and it is 4am so I am trying to get to the good part. Is the good part the bike riding, or my quirky rambling? I suppose that is for the world to decide.
So. The good part. I was collected from my work at approximately 9pm on Thursday and delivered to my sister Meemo's home in Trampa. This seemed relatively not awful. I was making it work! Werk! Twerk! Kyle, the renowned cat-4 muscle man from USF and Danny, a cat 1 with Florida Velo were to be my travel buddies. We would be rollin' in Danny's stylish station wagon (i alliterate you, POW).
Now, this station wagon was a thing to behold. This was a work of art. The pinnacle of beauty. It was a once-purple-now black crested plume of majesty sitting atop the Chevrolet mantle. To close the passenger door, you must slap the door handle while you are tucked inside the car. It burnt oil and drank gas. But, god damn it, it went, and so we were going in it.
Our planned departure time was noon. We spent a careful half-hour arranging the bikes just so on the trunk rack--tying this down here, tightening that there. It requires finesse, you see. Like ballet. Only without Natalie Portman. Promptly upon deciding that our noble steeds were secured, we piled into the car.
Danny shifted into reverse. Yay! Our adventure begins! Then, we lurched backward. That crunching sound--WHAT WAS THAT CRUNCHING SOUND!? Time was a thing. It was not that slow motion thing you see in movies. No, this was a more distilled form of horror that struck us three on that afternoon. Every mouth froze in a terrible O. We had backed into a concrete planter with three bikes strapped to the trunk rack.
"No--it wasn't my bike. It was some other bike." This was my first thought, and clearly i was in some sort of accelerated bereavement process. My brain turned back on and I leapt from the car while it was in the half-space between moving and not.
"Oh," I said. My bike looked fine. Fine! Can you believe it? It had been crunched against concrete! But the other bikes were not fine. My bike is kind of an asshole, you see. It sheared kyle's fork and busted the derailleur hanger from Danny's time trial bike. Kyle's first response was laughter; this immediately made me feel less like the world had ended and that we were all going to die.
CRISIS AVERSION MODE. Everyone leapt from the car with a saucy determination. WHAT TO DO! WHAT TO FIX!!!!! It became clear that my midget-y proportions were what spared my bike; it pushed into the concrete and then lifted over without resisting too much. Also, by some act of god, it seemed that I had left the tubular empty of air--had it been full, it probably would have exploded.
We began to google, text, and call furiously, scanning the earth and internet for a fork that could accommodate Kyle's gangly proportions and the weird derailleur hanger that fit Danny's motobecane. Danny found his part pretty quickly; they had something that would work at University Bicycle Center just down the road from the location of our carbon fiber massacre-melee. Despite our best efforts, the only fork we could find that would work on Kyle's BMC was his coach's; we drove backwards forty minutes and slapped it on. CAKE.
It was now after five and we had traveled forty miles in the wrong direction. WE HAD ACTUALLY MADE THE TRIP LONGER. But I was sure this race would be worth it! Yes! SO WORTH IT!!! We settled in for the drive. We drove, stopping only to dump oil into the engine and to eat cheeseburgers. Cheeseburgers are important.
LATER
We arrived in Pensacola around 1 AM. Thanks to the magic of time zones, this was actually 2 AM. But you know. Greenwich and all that. Our hotel was the Days Inn in Historic Downtown. No. I did not stutter. IT IS HISTORIC. We unloaded, and listened to the crazed wailing of the patrons of the New Orleans-themed bar attached to the lobby. In the immortal words of kyle, "LAY OFF THE METH. IT IS FOUR AM." I think I will have that quote monogrammed on towels.
DAWN!!!
Kyle and Daniel's races were both around 8:30; a forty-five minute drive out to the start gave us a six AM wake up call. YAY. I helped them load up and then went back to sleep--my race began at noon, and I thought i would be considerate to everyone else and get more beauty sleep.
LATER!!
I was collected by Laura, Laura, and Meaghan. WE SET OUT. This part is also boring, because it is more driving. BUT IT HAPPENED. They brought me red bull, which filled my heart with joy/palpitations.
EVEN LATER.
We arrived at the race course. I had consumed two redbulls and felt disgustingly good, especially considering the DOOM of the previous day. I saw many Tallahassee friends before the start, so that was nice. We did the pre-race things. It came time to begin, and all the ladies, category 1 through 4, lined up. There were maybe thirty people starting.
We went along, as gingerly as one might expect a local yokel sort of race to go. Everything was good! Great, even! The weather was nice, I was on a bicycle, and I was not in Naples. There are few more criteria for my happiness.
At the seventh mile, though, I was to be bitch slapped again by the wispy lords of fate. We took a right turn and Laura J did a little jump. It was a good jump! Very jumpy. The ladies responded. I was on the wheel of the mighty J-Crizzowell and I followed in her draft as she accelerated. Then, like the fist of god, some girl was plowing into me. I remember thinking, "WHY. WHYYYYY" and then twirling through the air still attached to my bicycle. The sailing through the air--it is becoming quite common, no? Is that how racing is supposed to work!?
I hit the ground and sort of mashed into my bike; my foot punched through my carbon wheel and got stuck in the spokes. The asphalt ate the ass off of my bibs and shredded my jersey. I looked around. There were four or five of us, I think, dominoed up on the side of the road with our carbon carnage. Someone else's tubular exploded with a shot. Zoe, a nice little racer for Exergy 2016, was screaming. Someone ran up and flipped her over. "HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN GREY'S ANATOMY!!!? WHY ARE YOU MOVING HER?!?!?" is along the lines of what I thought, but aloud, the only words that came out of my mouth were NON-G-RATED EXPLETIVES. A girl claimed responsibility, saying, "Sorry, guys--oh, look!" She pointed to the white of her forearm bone poking through her skin. Then, I said, "ARE THE GOING TO MOTOR PACE US?!???" Everything that came out of my mouth was either sailor swearing or a shrill, demanding yell. I am sure it was very annoying.
The officials told us that we could not, in fact motorpace back on and that we would have to chase. Wow. WOW. Remarkably, my bike did not look broken upon first glance. I whipped up and hopped back on and began to do the watts. The men's 5 race had just gone by--they were sure to catch the ladies, as they had only one lap and we had two. I caught them, with much fervor and whatnot, and made it to their wheel truck. I sat behind it going about 27. YES. EVERYTHING IS FINE. I touched my side and was alarmed to find a sticky wetness. Blood!?
No, it was guu. The sheer force of the impact had exploded three guu packets in my pocket.
Just as everything seemed fine, an official dropped back on his motorcycle.
"Get off that truck," he said.
"But...I was in a crash," I told him.
"That's nice," he said. He was gruff and bearded. I stared at him.
"FINE," I said. I got off and began to haul butt past the men's 5 field and my front wheel promptly exploded.
I was beginning to think maybe I should have been a carpenter, or perhaps a rodeo clown. This bike racing was thankless and I had just gone through a thousand dollars' worth of equipment in about three minutes.
"HA HA." This was the sound of the men's 5 peloton laughing at my either my misfortune or my fully exposed butt.
After this I was told by several officials that we would get last place finisher's time, but that I had to finish the whole race. SO I DID. I went. It was long.
I finished and the girls seemed surprised to see me. I think they thought I was dead or perhaps having tea somewhere. I was tended to by the nice paramedic man, and then I retired to the car. We set off immediately for the time trial--we all started in just about two hours' time, and it was almost an hour drive. WHAT A FUN HOBBY WE DO. IS THERE STILL TIME TO BE GOOD AT MATH?
LATER!!!!
We arrived back at the hotel. I promptly boarded my bicycle and departed for the course, while the ladies went upstairs to make ready for their own races. I had to go find kyle and see if I could borrow some bibs that still had a butt in them.
Kyle's time trial had already happened; he had arrived too late to really warm up or even attach his aero bars but he still put down his personal best time for a 3 mile distance. Yay, kyle! He let me borrow a kit and some aero bars and I began to warm up. I felt a sloughy doom what with the wounds and all, but my legs still felt pretty good! I drank two more redbulls, and I told the story of the epic happenings that afternoon to everyone that asked, and before I knew it, it was time to start.
TO BE CONTINUED!? No, really, I have to go to work and tell them why my Naples Cyclery kit no longer has a butt in it.
No comments:
Post a Comment