Tuesday, November 18, 2003
The Velveteen Trek 2000 and Deep Fried Oreos
There she sat and waited to be needed. Degraded, she sat, for many months in the nook of my kitchen behind the washer/dryer and dog water bowl. She collected dust and waited patiently for me to notice her. She did not despair. She knew someday I would return. She had cost too much damn money to be forgotten forever.
My road bike and I learned how to race together. We had flown through the wind during duathlons, triathlons and finally the Half-Ironman. She knew I was, at times, a little more than afraid of her. I knew she was, at times, a skittish companion. Once, she threw me to the ground and I skidded across the concrete on my elbow. Afterwards, casting hurt glances in her direction, I limped back home to be comforted and bandaged by Ponyboy. I soon forgave her and we continued to ride together. I needed her to push me through those long miles in all of my bike races. She endured these last six months, my time of marathon training, when I didn't need her at all.
What forced Baby Birdie to blow the dust off of her bike's seat, pump up her tires, and lovingly wipe the grime from her spokes? Was it the memory of flying through Austin hill country? Was it the hope that Baby Birdie would now start to ride seriously, instead of timidly? No. It was the promise of free beer, of course. And the hope of seeing inebriated German descendents polka in lederhosen and funny hats.
I was scheduled to ride the Wurst Ride in Texas, a 62-mile bike ride from Austin to New Braunfels. The ride ended in Landa Park, where the 2-week long German Wurstfest celebration would be in full drunken swing. If we completed the ride, we would receive a free ticket to Wurstfest, and also a ticket for free beer. I'm not sure whose idea it was to give delirious, dehydrated cyclists free reign to multiple kegs of beer.
My coach had encouraged me to participate in the ride, much to my confusion. Did it matter that I hadn't touched a bike in six months? Did it matter that I had never even ridden 62-miles in my life? Not even in the height of my Half-Ironman training had I ridden more than 50 miles. Did it matter that my racing companions had been training for months on their bikes in preparation for their recent Half-Ironman? Did it matter that they had always been quite a bit faster than me? Apparently not. "You'll be fine," my coach said, "You should have no problem keeping up with the rest of them." So it was with a bit of blind faith that I arrived at the start line that morning, in wrinkled cycling clothes, with a recently awoken bike, and the leg muscles of a runner, not a cyclist. I tried not to take to heart the gentle disbelief of Susan, my friend and riding companion. "You mean, you really haven't been on your bike at all?" Well, no. Not technically. But I would be fine, right?
And the first thirty miles were fine. The Wurst Ride took the four of us, Susan, Michelle, Erika, and Baby Birdie on back roads through farm country south of Austin, past cows and barking dogs and long fields of crops. Every ten miles we stopped at a water stop. We got off of our bikes and stretched and ate and drank. I was enjoying the speed and ease of cycling. It was so different than the struggle and jostling of running. Miles passed in minutes. Hills were over in seconds. Everything was muffled by the wind, blurred by the speed. It was fun, and so far, pretty easy.
But not for long. I remember the exact moment everything went down the poop chute. Susan was telling us all a story of the famous goat of Austin. The goat that perished while chewing the electric cord of a lamp. At the height of this sad tale, I noticed the world around me began to look a little swirly. My legs and body didn't feel tired, but my head felt like a distant, floating cloud. I was starting to bonk. No one else seemed to be having any problem. Why should they? Those first thirty miles were a walk in the park for these half-Ironwomen. They sailed along with no sign of fatigue. I felt like the old, sick wildebeest that would soon be picked off by lions. At the next water stop I called and left a message for Ponyboy to let him know what time we would be arriving. Pride kept me from saying what I really wanted to. I hoped he could hear what I was really telling him in this call:
"Hi Adam!"
Help me, Ponyboy.
"We're about half-way to New Braunfels."
Halfway? Sweet Baby Jesus, I think I might be dying.
"So, I'll meet you down there around 2 PM, OK?"
Come get me now.
"See you then!"
And bring a gun, you may need to put me out of my misery.
Soon, I had to admit how crazy I was feeling to my fellow cyclists. They were kind enough not to sacrifice me to the lions. They slowed down to a crawl. They made up games and songs to distract me from my pain. I sang along in the sort of cheery desperation of the feverishly dying. Every time I felt near faint, one of my friends would bring me back from the edge, while kindly ignoring my pathetic state. "Look Megan! Look! Michelle's going to do a puppet show for you! Look at the pretty puppets! You like puppets, don't you?" Temptress Susan offered to quit with me and ride in the sag wagon bus the rest of the way. But no. I was determined to finish this ride. If it killed me, at least all would know that I died on my way to free beer.
When we finally crossed the finish line, most of the other cyclists were already seated at picnic tables and tearing into the free BBQ. I tearfully thanked my friends for dragging me to the finish line. They waved off my appreciation with assertions that they too had been tired and hurting. I accepted their little white lies. And we had reached the promise land. We abandoned our bikes against the side of a fence next to a long line of fellow bikes. They would be fine right? No one would take our bikes, would they? I secretly didn't care. After those wretched 62 miles, I doubted I would be needing my bike anytime soon.
Glistening kegs awaited us. For the first 15 minutes, we had forgotten why we had come. We sat with plates filled with BBQ and cups filled with water before we all looked at each other disbelieving. What were we doing drinking this water? Were we stupid? We could drink water any old day, there was beer to be drunk! That's what we needed after 62 miles of cycling! Dehydrating beer!
It took not a half an hour before we were stumbly, sloshy, sunburnt cyclists. Our boyfriends/husbands arrived to find a group of giggly, yelling women drunk at 3PM in a family park. They were patiently amused by our chatterings and physical displays of idiocy. "Look Adam! Erika can do the Beyonce butt dance! ha ha! Wait, you two haven't met! Adam this is Erika, did I tell you she can do a mean Beyonce butt dance?"
We then entered the gates of Wurstfest into a land of people more obnoxious than us! Hurray! And they were wearing lederhosen and funny hats! Hip Hurray! And dancing to oompah music while sipping from pitchers of frothy beers! Hip Hip Hurray! We wandered around, dodging swerving Germans, in the search for more beer. And carnival rides. Urp. I would not be riding any carnival rides. But my friends were braver than I. I watched them spin and fall on rides operated by toothless, untrustworthy carnies at a speed that made me nauseous. But no one became sick and the ancient rides stayed intact to see another day.
Afterwards we listened to live, traditional, German music in the enormous Wurstfest hall. The hall is open only for the weeks of the festival, and the rest of the year it is a storage building for lonely, unused inner tubes. We ate food not fit for human consumption. We ate elephant ears, hunks of meat on sticks, and deep-fried oreos sent straight from heaven. We made a pathetic attempt to dance to the oompah music, before realizing that everyone else on the dance floor actually knew how to polka.
The beer was wearing off, and we began to worry about our bikes. We had placed them next to bikes that were to be picked up and transported back to Austin. It was now dark. Would they still be there? We walked back to find our bikes had disappeared. Had they been stolen? Or had they been picked up by the race organizers for the ride back to Austin? I still secretly didn't care. Michelle's husband drove my friends up to Austin to find our bikes while Ponyboy and I stayed in New Braunfels. They arrived to find our bikes safe at the start line. They were the only bikes that hadn't yet been picked up. They stood there like forgotten children after soccer practice. The race organizers were happy to find the owners, happy to give back the orphaned bikes, and soon offered my friends more free beer. They politely declined. Free beer had almost cost us all thousands of dollars worth of lost bikes. That's expensive free beer.
Later that week I picked up my bike from Susan's house. She was placed back into her corner in my kitchen. She will again begin to collect dust as I start another bout of marathon training. But I am thankful that she pushed me through that wretched ride. We had an adventure together. And we came out unscathed.
