Friday night came and went, and I didn't get run over, ticketed, lost, or laughed at. Okay, I dunno if people were laughing or not, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.
Jeff and I had decided to double-team the race, and after doing some quick maintenance on ol' Isabelle and stuffing both bikes into his VW we headed out to Ghent. I can run around the area and know where I am and how to get somewhere else but cross streets and the like are still unknown to me, so I printed out maps. I don't know Norfolk well enough to just strike out on my own and make it with any kind of quickness.
Three bicycle cops whizzed past, safetey lights a blinkin', as we parked on a narrow one-way street near the meeting point. I had never seen a bicycle cop in Ghent, so I was a bit paranoid. Had they caught wind of our shenanigans? Were they just waiting to bust us? Maybe they had sent everyone home, as we were just down the street from the intersection and I hadn't seen a group of bikes anywhere.
I started to worry before spotting
Kurtz at the rendezvous and shortly after the rest of the racers showed up, red lights and messenger bags everywhere. There was about eight of us, including two guys who showed up in suits which a couple of us took for Mormons that just saw us gathered and decided to join up. Boy did they have a laugh at the bar later on. I also met
Wes, who put this on with Kurtz and shook my hand and called me BuddhaDave and said some nice things about this here blog. I "met" both he and Kurtz by stalking them online and cold-emailing them to come out for the Sheldon ride.
Spoke cards in hand and friendly information exchanged, abruptly we were off. A boy I have dubbed "Trendy" sped off at an alarming rate and cut right through a parking lot to get to the street faster. If he was checking for cars, I didn't notice. It was right then I thought, "Oh shit." I realized this wasn't going to be a nocturnal version of my daily commute with more stops and beer at the end.
I decided to do what any smart boy of twenty-five who figures he's in over his head just a little bit would do: Pick a person, and follow them as long as I could. By chance (and unbeknownst to me) I happened to follow the only ex-messenger-current-racer in the pack. As Ex-Mess, Jeff, and I got about halfway to the first of four checkpoints I remember thinking, "Damn, I'm a slow, sad sack." Then we started to climb the bridge.
Now, I consider myself at least
familiar with climbs as I have to make four good ones round-trip on my commute. In the past few weeks I've been flawless about climbing as hard as I can until I reach the top, just to work them chicken legs I attach to my pedals. However, after misreading Ex-Mess' intentions and missing a sharp turn he made, I was making up for lost time by the time I caught up to him and Jeff at the bottom of the drawbridge. I was able to catch up with Jeff and as I started to pass him I panted, "Fucking gears!" Jeff and I both run fixed-gear bicycles, meaning we have one gear forever and ever amen.
We caught up with Ex-Mess at the first grocery store as he was locking his bike up. Behind us someone shouted that the store was closed. Jeff had the ingenious idea to pick up some of the numerous discarded receipts on the ground as proof that we had visited one of the required checkpoints. Then off again, quick as a bunny. This time I was able to keep up with Ex-Mess to the bridge, over the bridge, through downtown Norfolk, and down about four stairs that he warned me about but I didn't heed.
None of that may sound like a feat to you, but let me assure you, it was. When following close on someone's heels with a climb ahead of you, and you hear the click-click of them shifting, you start to wonder if maybe you're a little crazy. But then you're too busy standing up and falling into the perfect technique to let it bother you. You're also too busy to look for a way around the stairs you've temporarily forgotten about until, hey, there they are, sliding quickly towards you. I don't know what I did but apparently it was correct as I sailed over all of them, not touching a one, and landed flat and easy on the concrete below. I got scared later and repeatedly brought it up later in moments of silence over beer and the drive home.
At the second store we were separated from Ex-Mess as Jeff watched the bikes and I dashed inside to do some shopping. A man with grey stubble and a friendly smile was between us at the only checkout isle available and even though he probably would have dumped us later, I firmly hold that I may have been able to possibly maybe stick with him until the end. Or there abouts.
Back outside with two boxes of oatmeal and mac & cheese in my bag, Jeff and I consulted the maps. Our guide was gone, no longer could we freeload off him. We picked a store near to us and as we jumped into traffic (against the light) spied another racer heading in about the same direction. Huzzah! Another host from which to leech. As
BikeSnobNYC will tell you, "Cycling is an entire sport based on cheating. If you race or you know anything about racing, you know that it is based on doing as little work as possible. Your equipment and your tactics are designed around saving every bit of energy you can. It’s freeloading on wheels." After Friday, I completely agree.
It gets a little fuzzy here in the middle for me, but I can tell you we pedaled our asses off, had no respect for the law, traffic signals, or right of way, lived up to every bad expectation of urban cyclists, and generally enjoyed the shit out of being outside, being dangerous, and getting away with it. I imagine my state of mind was like that of someone battling in the Coliseum: Not a lot of useless thought, just a lot of action. Caution and self-preservation were thrown to the wind. While heads were swivelin' whenever we came to an intersection, very rarely did we slow down. Sorry Dad, sorry Kasey.
After what seems like a very short time of biking, running into stores, frantically looking for various food items, and doing it all over again we ran into Kurtz and were following him to the last stop on the list. If Jeff hadn't told me we were at the end I probably wouldn't have gotten everything on the list, and that'd have sucked. Kurtz and I ran inside while Jeff watched our babies and helped each other find the shit we needed to wrap this sucker up. Outside Wes and the Pseudo Mormons showed up shortly after us and bicycle-clad shoppers were everywhere. Ten steps from the register (and four steps from the security guard) I realized I'd just been stuffing items into my bag before paying for them. Whoops!
In a real show of teamsmanship (and definitely not of fatigue) those of us outside with the last of our items stuck around and waited for those still inside. Then we all took off for the finish. At this point I wasn't even thinking about the finish line. I was just focused on staying upright, not getting run over, and keeping up. Kurtz was leading through some very industrial looking streets, over train tracks and behind warehouses. I was glad we were on fast moving bicycles and not walking. Kurtz took a sharp corner I was not expecting and I thought for sure I was going down. My bag was full and I was leaning over hard. Again, somehow I made it and started laughing before it was even over. Let it be said that despite my gangly appearance and moon-faced features, I have decent reflexes.
Suddenly people were sprinting up the street and we were done. Just like that. All foodage was deposited into Ex-Mess' bike trailer and headed for the hungry.
Ex-Mess was first, followed by Trendy about four minutes later, and then the rest of us. Fast SOBs. The bar we met at apparently wanted to charge us a cover as they had live music that night, so we decided to take our dinero somewhere else. Jeff and I did a bunch of backtracking as he thought he'd lost the stabilizer strap to his bag, but after some searching discovered it was just coiled up inside the bag itself.
Another quick bar change (Kurtz had to find us to let us know) and we had glasses in our hands and smiles on our faces. Loud talk over louder music, about cycling, commuting, traffic, and those damn stairs that jumped out and scared me. This is also the point where we discovered the Pseudo Mormons weren't Mormon at all, just some quick guys who wanted to look dapper.
A very tasty cider and a Sam Adams are all it takes to get a one-hundred and thirty pound kid who's been cycling hard for over an hour without water nice and tipsy. We parted ways and Jeff drove me home, having given up alcohol for Lent and having the extreme willpower to do so while still hanging out at bars. I got home, cuddled a bit, and crashed out hard around Two in the morning.
My GPS unit says I covered 8.68 miles in about an hour total, with thirty-five minutes and thirty-four seconds of actual moving time and an average speed of fifteen miles an hour and a max speed of twenty-five. I say bollocks. To all of it. I think darting in and out of grocery stores and losing the signal every time messed with the numbers. Plus, once this thing told me I did fifty-nine miles an hour which is flattering but false.
I had a great time and would definitely do it again in a heartbeat. Hopefully more events reach my ears and inbox now that my community of cyclists is decreasingly online-only. Except for that one time I got to ride Godzilla around south-east Idaho for a couple of hours, this was the best Friday night I can remember in a long time.
It's home-ways for me now, have a good night.
- David
