Sharon got up with me at “way too early thirty” on Saturday, and dropped
me off at a gas station near Rhodes Stadium, where the Mattress Firm luggage truck
was located. Rhodes is in Katy, so I’ll
end up doing something less than the 100 miles I would have done from Tully
Stadium, but it’s well worth it not to have to put up with the wait to get a
car into Tully, much less get it out again, much less then stand next to my
bike for two hours waiting for the rolling start. I run across a friend from the Hash, Jason,
and his friends, who are making a pit stop before heading out themselves. It’s the last familiar face I will see all
day.
I pull out my bike just before 7am, kiss my wife goodbye, and just like
that, I’m off, flying solo. There’s not
another Rider within a hundred yards of me.
It is bliss, but it will not last.
At Mile 12 I hit the first rest stop, and I’m determined to hit most of
them because my left knee has not cooperated for the past year now, much less
on my training rides. With three prior
surgeries, the resulting scar tissue and an increasing lack of flexibility, it
requires much attention and usually hurts for the first couple hours of riding. I approach the medical tent for an early dose
of ibuprofen. The volunteers also rub
some topical gel on my knee, the first of many times I’ll get this done. I take note of a giant communal bottle of
“Butt-R”, the emollient that Riders smear on their nether regions to relieve
the rash and neuralgia of riding on those tiny seats for hours at a time. Attempting humor, I ask “who applies that, ha
ha ha”. Without missing a beat, a lady
points at a boy of about 16 and says “that’s his job!”, then she laughs out
loud, as do a couple of the other volunteers.
It’s the weirdest and most inappropriate thing I will hear all day. The kid just rolls his eyes and in a flash it’s
clear: that is his Mom; Mom is drunk; Mom says things like this all the time;
which means Mom drinks a lot.
A few miles down the road, I’m approached for the first time by another
Rider who – upon reading the back of my jersey – will ask “does the Mattress
Firm provide a mattress in your tent for every rider?” It will happen a few more times, and every
time the person asking will be a woman.
So, the Mattress Firm jersey makes me a chick magnet; or is it the
mattress? I think Mattress Firm needs to
use the whole mattress thing as a recruiting tool. Sure, St Arnolds gives you fine beers, but a
real mattress upon which to lay your weary bones? No comparison.
Mile 18.5 and I’m in to the second rest stop. By now
things are jammed up because the pack is apparently going faster than my
blistering 14 mph pace. As the mass of
Riders turn in, the volunteers are asking Riders to “move to the right; wayyyyy
to the right”. I will hear this all day,
because there are thousands of Riders, and as each Rider gets off their bike
they lay it on the ground, sucking up valuable real estate. They lay it on the ground because they don’t
have kickstands. They don’t have
kickstands for the same reasons they will dress in helmets and bike outfits
that make them all look like a casting call for La Cage Aux Folles. They are driven like so many cattle away from
the food and portable toilets and out into the surrounding fields because their
bikes take up so damn much room.
They do it all for the sake of vanity.
To amuse myself, I do the math in my head: an acre of land will hold around
1200 bikes lying down; that same acre will hold 5,000 bikes with kickstands.
Dealing with this logistical nightmare, the volunteers are encouraging
Riders to prop their bikes upright by leaning two bikes into each other. This turns out to be a hysterical affirmation
of my long-held claim that in addition to being vain, most other bike riders
are also insane, at least by Einstein’s definition. They are insane because propping bikes
together rarely works, with the bikes constantly falling over, frequently with
a chain reaction that knocks yet more bikes to the ground. Why
not just purchase a kickstand? Not sexy
enough? No vanity appeal? For a group of people so obsessed that they allocate
more space inside their homes for their bikes than their pets, not using a
kickstand makes absolutely no sense.
And then I have my Next Big Idea: I will produce a line of kickstands
that are as multi-colored as the typical Rider’s helmet; I will call them
anti-gravity devices; they will have meaningless Flare, a Spoiler and glow in
the dark; I will sell them for fifty – no – one hundred dollars
each. Fat City, baby. Fat City.
The Volunteers will speak my name with reverence, and in 2014 I will
come out with a version that is solar powered…..
Around Mile 20, the Tully and Rhodes routes merge together, and the
Tully pack – which started quite a bit further back - has also caught me. However, we’re all at a standstill because a
Rider is down. It takes about 15 minutes
to walk our bikes past the Rider, a woman who does not appear to be too badly
hurt, and I overhear one of the EMS Techs say that anybody that goes down is
getting strapped to a board as a precaution.
That’s new since my last ride in 2010.
Fortunately, that’s the only accident I will see all day.
I motor on for another 13 miles or so to the next rest stop. I roll in, park my bike, and I’m immediately seized
by a sneezing fit. This has been a
brutal allergy season. The girl next to
me says “gesundheit”, and in classic Valley Girl launches into a description of
a product at Walmart that was “kind of like a Tea Pot that you used to flush
out your sinuses, but not like you boil the water because would that be painful
but just, like, warm the solution, turn your head sideways and kind of like,
let it flow? And you’re thinking you’re
going to choke but you won’t? And then
when you’re done you’re like oh my god do I feel better! And every time I use it I am like good for
the day. It’s amaaaazing.”
I’m stupefied, because this girl is, like, 21 years old, and I didn’t
think anybody Gen X or lower was capable of actual conversation anymore, at
least not without cell phone in hand, text at the ready. I thank her, wish her luck, visit the Med
tent and move on down the road.
I got into Bellville for lunch around 11:30am, and there was no doubt
that I was in the back of the pack, and at the present pace wouldn’t be into
Lagrange before 4pm. No matter; here was
the totality of the Riders for me to view on one big open fairground. Lunch in Bellville is the only opportunity
to see all of the Riders with such an unobstructed view. As I got my sandwich and pasta, I observed
that on the whole Riders are a very amiable group of people. For one thing, they smile a lot more than
Runners do. They all make room for one
another, and since cycling is so cultishly obsessed with technology and accessories,
keeping up a steady stream of small talk with a complete stranger is no problem
at all.
I’ve zinged my fellow riders for their devotion to fashion in virtually
all my earlier posts, and this year will be no different, albeit that it is
done affectionately. Let’s face it:
cycling is different than any other sport.
You don’t just get on your bike and ride, particularly since clip-on
bike shoes became so popular. You must
assemble the shoes, gloves, outfit, helmet, bandana and sunglasses; you must
inventory your repair kit; you must air your tires, lube your chain and
frequently tweak the brakes and derailleur; you must fill your water bottles
and pack your supplements. Never was a
more support-intensive sport.
Which brings us to the helmets: While the outfits are flamboyant and I
noticed with amusement that a significant percentage of Riders have purchased
bikes whose colors seemed to match their team uniforms, it is the helmets that
stick out. They are oversized, bursting
with violent colors and tortured into shapes that might be dramatic, but are hardly
practical. Modern cycling helmets remind
me of a prop in one of my favorite movies of all time: the 1987 epic, RoboCop. In the movie, my former hometown of Detroit
is a ghastly dystopia: the city is a crumbling ruin, the people live in squalor
and the streets run with blood; In other words, the Detroit of today.
Set in the relatively near future, this future Detroit still produces
automobiles, but only one model: the 6000 SUX.
The car looks like a 70s era Matador on steroids, with square yards of boxy
sheet metal that serve no purpose; it gets 8.2 miles per gallon; it is a gaudy tank
suitable for urban combat and little else.
This is what today’s bike helmets remind me of. Think I’m exaggerating? You be the judge:
Stay tuned for Part III.
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