123117 The Year That Almost Killed Me

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Tumultuous

THAT is what my year was.  It was weird.  It was wild and beautiful and crazy and scary and sad and way too many other adjectives for me to list.  I sold the store and took the summer off and then got a job and basically just twisted my whole life around and inside out and I still don’t exactly know what the hell I am doing or where I am going in this life.  I can tell you that I am much happier now than I have been in many, MANY years though.  But I am not exactly sure why.  My head is a full of bats and snowstorms and stomping goblins all gnashing their teeth and laughing and yelling at me that it’s time to let the past go and not just in a passive sort of way.  But can I do this thing?  I am trying.  Let me explain…

The store was my life.  Every single bit of me went into that thing and a large part of me is still in there to this day…banging around in the back with a drill or a ladder or something and doing the THINGS that made the place what it was and what it probably still is, just a little bit.  I spent many a long day and night creating a space and a culture there and I am damned proud of what I did.  Of what I created.  The ability to create is perhaps the most important gift I have been given in this most tempestuous life.  It is what drives me and makes me happy and basically keeps me alive at this point.  The act of creation is sacred to me.  It should be.  It is so very important.  That drive and that NEED to bring something into existence and grow it into something that thrives and has utility…it is more or less indescribable.  I cannot think, right now, of proper words to describe how important it is to me.  Without it I would never have built the store, or the bike teams, or the many wonderful and important relationships that I have been blessed with over the past ten years.  Holy smokes…we are all capable of so much if we just let ourselves open up our minds and our hearts and hands and eyes and all the other senses we can and just do the things and make the things and just DARE to grab ahold of our dreams and wrangle the things into existence by sheer act of will and stubborn bull-headed persistence! 

And so much for all of that.  It is over now.  I did the things and made the things and they were all awesome and I had so many friends and customers and acquaintances and teammates and sponsors and man oh man it was a wild ride.  What I want to get off my chest though is how very very very VERY damned sad I was to leave it all behind.  It really, profoundly affected me.  The store belongs to someone else now (a very good man) and the team is no longer mine.  Things happened between myself and some other people who are involved with those things and not all of it was good and most of it was my fault.  Let me say something here:  I don’t consider myself a great person.  I am not one to grandstand when I race bikes or gloat when I accomplish something good in life.  I try my best to be quiet and considerate and ALWAYS to listen to people when they talk to me.  But sometimes I can pop off at the head when I feel strongly about something and sometimes I can say or do things which may be hurtful to other people.  I don’t do this very often but I have been known to do it.  And sometimes the things I say or do are so hurtful that I damage relationships just like an axe through wood.  I am sorry for those things.  I really am.  But now I consider those matters closed and that part of my life over.  I truly miss those people and the good times we had together but I understand why the distance between us has grown so vast.  Sucks…really does. 

So now I am at another shop and it is on the complete opposite side of the city and that fact is very prescient.  I manage a big store and I really like all the people I work with….err, with whom I work.  Sounds so goofy to say it properly.  I am NOT the head honcho anymore and I have to be accountable to someone else now…a behavior which has never come easily to me.  But, anyway I like what I am doing and I have started several new projects that are really stirring up the creative juices.  …my mind is aglow with whirling transient nodes of thought…careening through a cosmic vapor of invention (stolen) and I feel very invigorated right now.  I am slightly manic a lot of the time because my head has not been this free for many, MANY years.  I am also coaching and have started two other teams, with the help of several great friends.  And soon you will be seeing a big huge sprinter-style van full of tools and workstands and bike parts and covered with big logos and stripes and such and you know what’s inside?  …a little bike shop!  We are launching the mobile side of the store and I am pretty dang proud to say that I have a large hand in the creation of this new thing.  We will be driving around soon and going to your house to fix your rig instead of you having to drag it over to us!  The store is also the primary sponsor of our new women’s racing team, Gray Goat Mobile - Bullseye Total Media Women’s Racing (I have long supported women’s racing in Indy).  This team is, well, just badass.  They are fast and hungry and I imagine they will pretty much dominate women’s racing around the INKY area and also on the national scene as they are a division 1 team in the USA Crits series. 

Creation, folks…it’s the best.  Make stuff and feed it and water it and give it love and watch it grow and thrive and just be happy that we all are blessed with this ability to bring our ideas into existence.  I feel…good.  I dare say it.  I actually feel good right now.  I have been a stark raving mad anxious maniac for way too long and now it’s time for me to calm down and just let it be, let it be………let it beeeeeeee yeah let it be!  Whisper words of wisdom….let it be………..  Thanks, Paul. 

A new Chris has emerged, folks, and he is a much better and happier person than he has been in a very, very long time.  This may be dangerous as when I get to being manic and having flights of ideas and stuff I tend to go all wacky-wonky and I can’t stop until the thing careens all fast and loose and faster and faster and give it MORE GAS FOR CHRISSAKES!!!!!  …..we gots things to do…

MUCH LOVE

Deckard and the Coyote and life is too short.

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Watching Blade Runner again, maybe for the tenth time.  Priss and Roy and Tears in Rain and all that stuff.  Such a great flick.  I’m looking forward to seeing the next one.  It’s an absorbing movie.  Even Beth is watching without being on a device.  

If I only had four years to live, well, shit, what would I do?  I can’t make the decision alone…too important.  Gotta have assistance.  My brain is a used up old car with manual roll-up windows and a broken radiator.  The AC doesn’t work and there sure as shit aren’t any seatbelts.  It loves to run at 150 miles per hour but it overheats all the time and I have to piss in the radiator out in the middle of nowhere while the coyotes stare at me and the turkey vultures hover around like…turkey vultures.  

A vehicle needs maintenance periodically but I do not have the means to provide it.  Drugs can help (my mind, mind you…haha get it?)  a little bit…I guess.  A vehicle needs fuel also.  A life that burns twice as fast burns half as long, said the Man.  Gotta find some fuel fast or that life won’t even have a chance to burn so bright.  And to hell with all that.  It’s a stupid analogy.  

Wiley Coyote….Super Genius!  That’s more like it.  I’ll spend my life planning elaborate traps for a bony-assed little bird who runs really fast and relishes the opportunity to outsmart me at every bend in the red desert road.  And it’s all sponsored by Acme Corporation.  That’s my life.  I am constantly defeated by a missed step or a cracked outcrop and I fall a hundred feet to the dusty road below.  But I never die.  That’s the rub.  I keep doing stuff.  I keep planning things and paying too much attention to the stream of ideas that runs in circles around and around in my little cave dwelling behind some rocks in that awful desert with that jackass bird constantly foiling my plans.  But sometimes it works a little bit.  I’ve actually eaten roadrunner.  Not The Roadrunner, mind you.  But I have eaten one or two of its kind.  Not much meat.  It you dry it out you can get ten years worth but you have to really meter it out and sometimes in the winter it gets pretty scary and you may need to supplement with a can or corn or something. 

The movie is almost over.  Roy is chasing Deckard through that old building and bashing everything to pieces and he’s about to make the Speech.  Such great dialogue in this thing.  Everything is wet and greyish-blue and it’s all ABANDONED!  

A change of heart and the Speech.  Tears in rain.  Always gets me.  It’s a pathetic end to a fast-burning but short life.  I wonder which is better because it gets kind of boring on the hundred year plan.  You actually live several different life times within that jeering span.  The span is the outline and the Mind who makes the decisions…it peers on at you in a sort of narcissistic realization that YOU are ultimately sprinting around in strange patterns and every once in a while you stop and have a moment.  And the moment can be a few minutes or ten or thirty years or longer.  But at the end of the line, when you have run your last pattern and the rain starts falling hard and grey those moments will end up washed away like Roy’s.  And that’s how movies get made!  You’re welcome…

Jesus what a morose entry!  I am really sorry for that.  How about this to end things up:

I have noticed that the coyotes have begun to shit everywhere again.  I don’t know what they eat but it is red and has what appear to be a lot of pumpkin seeds in it…or something similar.  That means little dogs should not go walking around alone at night.  Though…the more I think about it, the more I want a coyote puppy.  They are fascinating.  We’ll put a collar on it and call it Banjo Fred and he’ll be our inspiration for many home movies, newspaper cartoons, and oil paintings.  And that’s FINAL!  No negotiations.

Go ride your bikes and walk your dogs and enjoy your lives.  You never know how much time you’ll get.

Road Season is Over and other rambling nonsense

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Cycling season is over.  Cyclocross doesn’t count.  Cyclocross is mud and wet and cold and in many ways it is the most miserable thing I can think of.  I remember one race watching some of the juniors waiting in line, in freezing temps, for the use of a hose so that they could have their parents, or friends, aim the thing at their mud-caked bodies, while still wearing their kits, and spray them off.  I felt so sorry for them.  Why go through this terrible ritual just for the sake of a 45 minute race on a course that could be described as a replica of a World War I battlefield?  I did a few of them and I guess it’s just not for me.  Cold, wet conditions are not my friend.  I need to be very warm in order to perform optimally and ‘cross just is not normally like that.  Current conditions are definitely not an accurate representation of the mean conditions that normally greet racers.  It has been in the 90s this week and there have already been at least two local races as far as I can tell and the racers are sweating like war horses as they pedal and run up hills and all that crap that’s part of cyclocross.  But that will soon change and it’ll be back to rain and cold slop and those of you who do this sport will regale instagram and facebook and twitter with tall tales of heroic exploits and “Almosts” and I will have to unfollow all of you.  And enough of that.  I have a lot of friends that participate in that kooky sport and some of them are actually really good at it…some of them are pretty dominant.  Thermal skully hats off to ye…

But the road season is over now.  Except in Belgium where Jack and Robert are slaving away doing kermesses and muddy crits and having an all around great time…according to social media.  I have been so impressed with the development of those two.  First IB has really taken care of them and the team has made it possible for them to do what a lot of young, talented racers dream of.  But for us masters and the other young guns who train relentlessly day after day and week after week over the winter and spring just to be in shape to do one-hour crits in the summer…the season is finished.  And that sucks.  I loved this year.  it felt different than years past.  Team Heroes was pretty damned good and we had some great results.  The other strong teams in this region were still strong but we had an answer for anything they threw at us and we were more proactive in our race strategies also.  Personally, I had a great season and won some races and raced hard and tried to be a good teammate and I think all of that was pretty damned neato.  And hell no I am not thinking of doing some ‘cross races.

Crits are fun.  Going super fast on bikes in extremely close quarters with a bunch of other guys who are bumping bars with you and always searching for better position and attacking and countering and bridging and cornering so hard you can feel your rear tire slide a little bit…all of that is super addictive and I miss it already and it sucks that we have to go through winter and trainer season before we can do all that shit again.  Damn!  That was a long sentence!  Long sentences are sort of fun, though, aren’t they?  They create a sense of anticipation and a buildup of tension until at the end, there is some sort of combination of words that creates a resolution and you can sigh and start something new.  Like music.  I’m rambling now.  No matter…it was crits we were talking about.  I like cornering the best.  I love being at the front of the group approaching hard corners and just blazing through them as hard as I can and looking back at what sort of gap I created.  The sensation of the rubber gripping the asphalt and the tension in the wheels as you reposition your body low and forward on the bike so your center of gravity is correct is just pure roller coaster school and I highly recommend it to anyone with a healthy bit of aggression and killer instinct.  

Killer instinct is something I talk about a lot with the athletes I coach.  I firmly believe you are either born with it or you are not.  Now, that’s not to say that there are not varying degrees of killer instinct, because there are.  There is no such thing as an absolute, IMHO.  But it has been my experience that the riders I have placed on teams or coached fall into two camps.  Those with natural killer instinct, whom I call Killers, will generally be more successful in races, with less effort on my part.  They simply “want it” more than the other guy.  There is an inborn need to be better than everyone else.  And while they may not ever actually be better than everyone else, they will always work toward that goal.  I can tell if an athlete has killer instinct almost immediately upon meeting them.  There is a sort of fiery-eyed confidence that radiates out from a Killer.  And it infiltrates and punctuates pretty much everything they do in life.  You have to be careful with them, though.  They can be a bit emotional when things don’t go their way.  I’ve seen pure phenoms go to tears when they missed out on the winning break and had to roll in with the peloton in ignominy.  Or at least ignominy according to their aggro-addled brains.  Killers are the fun ones to coach.  They always want to do more.  They always want to push the intervals a little bit farther.  They will always skirt the high edge of the zone they are in and they will never miss an opportunity to sprint you if you prod them. 

The other athlete, the one without natural killer instinct, will often test very high for FTP or maximum sprint power but it is much more difficult to get them to the point where they can be competitive in races.  It can happen, but it just takes a different approach.  These athletes want to be competitive…they want to be bike racers, but they tend to be too analytical and tentative when faced with extremely fast-paced challenges like fast, hard cornering or positioning during a sprint.  It tends to be very easy to get them in really good shape but when it comes to applying that fitness to the actual sport, it takes a lot of conversation and sometimes a practical, hands-on approach like making them follow you through hard corners on a practice crit course until they can stay on your wheel…or making them stay in the top six or eight riders in a very difficult local group ride…a “worlds” type ride or local Hammerfest.  These athletes find it difficult to do these things because their personalities are not conducive to that sort of riding.  But…with a lot of practice and some practical and/or motivational conversations, the non-killers can become pretty good bike racers.  Oh and by the way, I am building a website for my coaching biz.  it's called Zone-6 Coaching.  I'll put something on social media soon.  If anyone is interested, let me know.  Yes, I know what I'm doing.  

Tired of talking about that also.  So here are some things that make me happy during bike season:  Bikes and asphalt and hot sun and water bottles…10 x 10 tents and sticky skinsuits and shit!  Where the hell is my rear wheel?!  Furiously attempting to pin a number on when it’s 93 degrees and you got to the venue a half hour after you wanted to.  Tom always leading the first lap, no matter where we are.  Tom always knowing about a thousand different people NO MATTER WHERE WE ARE.  Harry’s Jorts and the Bri and the girls with their love affair with many different brands and patterns of socks.  Court off the front.  Court off the front.  Court off the front.  Aaaaaand Court off the front…  Don just generally being the most selfless teammate I could ever imagine.  My need for hour-long warmups on the trainer while Tom and Harry casually pedal around for fifteen minutes and whatever, dude…  The general awesomeness of the atmosphere at Indy Crit and the teams always congregating in the same spot under the usual tents with teammates, friends, and family hanging out and cheering and bullshitting and drinking beer and hot damn it’s just such a great sport…

What a super rambling, possibly incoherent piece of nonsense this thing is.  I apologize if you read it all and missed something important on the TV like some stupid platitude-filled post-game speech by one of the overpaid NFL players that just narrowly missed getting a concussion today (to be sure, I like the NFL and watched most of the games today).  Everyone hates Trump, especially the NFL right now...well, except Jerry Jones.  Sports and politics mixed up like concrete and hair-gel and who the hell cares, anyway?  (probably a lot of us, but it sounded good)

I need to go and watch the new Star Trek now and then go to bed.  Beth is already being magnetically drawn toward the stairs.  The Tempurpedic mattress uses the Force to draw her in and she falls asleep in five minutes nightly.  Wish I had that ability.  Oh well…  Later,

-C

Rats! And the Force! And the miserable Colts.

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Rats are gnawing on my irises!  They are literally chewing on the backsides of my eyes because they are in my skull right now.  They have not eaten much of my brain yet, which is why I can write this, but I am afraid that they will do that soon enough.  

They got in my head last night when I was passed out next to the fire pit on our patio.  I don’t know how I lost track of time, or my consciousness, but it happened, and those filthy fuckers cut straight through some of my neck tendons and crawled up through the foramen magnum, one by one, with help from their razor sharp claws and powerful leg muscles.  Rats are very strong.  They are also attracted to white matter, apparently…and eyeballs.  

What I DON"T want to happen is for them to mess with my higher cognitive functions and my eyesight, in general.  I already have to wear readers when I am looking at anything closer than about two feet from my face.  And I don’t want them to get too close to my pre-frontal cortex.  That would be disastrous.  I can feel them wriggling around in there like two huge beetle larvae just eating everything they can until they develop their armor and legs and can escape.  But escape is not what these awful devils want.  They want to take control of my mind and direct me like a shitty little homunculus with ten arms and a fiendish book of instructions that was created specifically by someone or some thing on acid or mushrooms.  

That is what it feels like sometimes.  Levers are pulled and buttons pushed and I do things and say things and move around as if controlled and directed by a foul-tempered wizard.  I don’t know why I do some of the things I do!  I just can’t help it.  I mowed the lawn and planted a tree and made the bed but I didn’t ask my wife what she wanted to do today because I thought, for whatever reason, that my doing chores was something good and something for which I should be rewarded.  But this is marriage, people!  It does not work that way.  (she is sitting next to me with a blanket over her and playing on her computer…Bella is between us and Walter is on the floor and we are watching the Colts game and waiting to go to church)  What I should have done was work out (ride) while she was doing her workout and then come home and ask her what was most important to her today.  That is what a husband should do.  Happy wife / happy life…as they say.  And I should have done that.  But…I didn’t.  It’s the rats.  

I can tell they have made their way into my temporal lobes.   I can’t remember things like I could twenty years ago when I was smart.  But they are eating my temporal lobes now and it is much worse.  They need to stay away from the dura mater.  That is the lining of the skull.  Can’t let them get to the actual bone…the calcium.  They need it to aid their muscle contraction…especially the heart muscle.  And they can get it if they drill through to the bone.  So I am officially asking anyone reading this right now if you have some rat poison or repellant which I might borrow…or just take, so that I can stuff it up the open wound in my neck and kill the evil bastards.  I think they may have targeted me.  I have spoken to some of my neighbors and they all seem to be fine.  They sort of look at me queerly when I tell them I have giant rats in my head trying to blind me by eating my eyes from the inside out, but what am I supposed to do?  What I can’t tell, though, is which one of them set the dirty things loose on my patio (rats don’t normally live around here).  Whoever it was must have been watching me…which leads me to believe that it was one of my closer neighbors.  I’ll find out.  You can bet on that.  I have ways!  A person like me always has ways.  inexhaustible resources…intellectual purpose and laser-focused direction, my friends.  I’ll catch them soon enough and then it’ll be rats for them!

But in the meantime…it has to be poison.  That’s the only way to get rid of rats…especially when they obviously have a purpose and are motivated to fill their bellies with axons and dendrites.  Gotta be careful, though.  Can’t just stuff it up there because I don’t want to destroy any more of my brain than absolutely necessary to get rid of the fiends.  I may need professional help.  If I could find an exterminator with a gentle hand and surgical precision i would hire him or her but I doubt that person exists.  And it figures.  And so it goes…  That’s always the way it goes with rats.

When your wife is happy with you, or forgives you for something, or is just generally nice to you, the rats get sick and begin to die.  I don’t exactly know how it works but you can actually feel them slowing down their movements and they stop chewing so incessantly on your eyes and dura mater and whatever lobes they happen to be near.  Sometimes you still need rat poison to fully rid yourself of the little shits but I do know that the surest way to mitigate the damage done by them is to be a good husband.  Don’t be selfish.  Take her for a walk sometimes with the pups.  Talk to her.  Listen to her.  Go and do something that she wants to do on your day off.  Make her dinner.  Lots of things…  They all help kill those rotten buggers in your skull…in my skull.  They are still there and I can feel them but they are getting tired, I think.

Colts just threw an interception and now the Cardinals are poised to kick a FG and put a bullet through the horse.  Hell they may get a TD.  Fegging Colts.  Oooohhh…FG it was.  Being a Colts fan is like being in a submarine that has a random tendency to Crazy Ivan without permission from the Captain…or anyone else, for that matter.

But the rats.  I just pulled one out.  It was disgusting…all bloody and covered in my grey and white matter and cerebrospinal fluid.  Skinny thing.  I opened the back gate and turned it loose toward the middle of the commons area.  No, I did not kill it.  I don’t do that.  All life is sacred, and all that crap.  Beth always gets mad when I capture spiders and let them loose outside instead of killing them.  Anyway the coyote or the red fox will probably get him…he was pretty weak.  The other one is still in there but I think I can get him before the end of the night.  If not, I will get him tomorrow morning after I have some coffee.  I think the caffeine might help because it is a vasoconstrictor.  Might make some more room for me to reach up there.  It’s almost dead, I think.  My wife seems to like me right now.  Some sort of inverse relationship between our relationship and the health of the rat.  I assume it is some form of telepathy mixed with the Force.  And I really believe in that shit, mind you.  Lightsabers and dead rats.  The fate of the galaxy in the balance and I have to deal with fucking rats.  

Anyway, be nice to your wife is the point.  And I’m out…

squeezing out some darkness

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it only takes one time

mom says it’s over…no more bullshit from you, son

you’ll soon be an orphan when the truck comes at five

no more hugs at bedtime and no more gentle wake up kisses

a cold cot and three meals a day with all the other dregs

my brain twists itself into a fucking knot…a starter knot

because the knot   will keep twisting and getting stronger and 

more complicated.

now i don’t know anymore.  my silence overwhelmed me and i 

don’t know who to trust…or if there is really such a thing.

i trust no one and no thing.  i am ten years old and we move to

the suburbs.  i begin to create a new chris.  the old chris is going away.

the old chris loves his mommy and daddy and baby sister.  the old chris 

loves his kitty and fred the dog and even gormorker…gypsy.  

the new chris is a gypsy, in reality and he wanders from friend to friend

and uses his perceptive and naturally mimicking and desperate nature to change himself into 

whatever or whoever he needs to be to fit the situation or the manufactured

friendship.

some chris’ make some really great friends in high school and  even has a couple of

girlfriends…but they never work out because the girls always sniff out the lack of genuineness. 

but the guys stick by me because most of them also create alter-egos and we all dance in a 

circle of lies and hurt and sarcastic humor and it is a comfortable place.  we play sports and tell

jokes and i make about six different chris’ for my six best friends.  it works and it tells me that this could work forever and i don’t have to worry about my deep hurt.  but it’s always there and it always drives me from the most powerful part of my soul.

years go by and i have so many chris’ that it’s hard to keep track.  the best ones

are great friends and sometimes are very close to the real chris.

that real chris is still there…but he is trapped in a very deep well and he is covered in 

suffocating water and is constantly fighting to stay above the water line as he looks

up at the opening of the well.

and he sees his friends and his girlfriends peering down into the well in order to get 

a glimpse of chris.  even his wife does this.  she does it the most.  chris claws his way 

up the impossibly slimy walls of the well but he cannot get up.

my mother doesn’t visit the well.  she thinks she knows me.  she knows very little 

about me and most of the time i don’t care.  i give her a chris she can live with so 

she doesn’t feel guilty about making a monster…she did make a monster…i am a monster

sometimes i hate myself and i want to kill the monster…literally kill it.  i could kill it.  it would be 

oh so easy.  i hate the goddam thing and i do my best to keep it at bay but it feels like the fucking thing wants to shred its way out of my skin and hurt something or someone.  the monster is anger.  it is pure hurt and anger and fear and that sense of betrayal that i felt kneeling on the tennis courts praying to God that i would be okay at the orphanage because i

really believed my mommy was never coming back to get me.  hurt and hurt and more hurt and

how could i ever believe in anyone ever again when the person i loved most in life and in whom i

placed my total trust betrayed everything i ever believed in about her and just chose abandonment.  abandonment instead of parenting.  cast off like a broken piece of furniture.  It only takes one fucking time...one crucial moment in a life to break a heart and break a person and yeah...it only takes one time.

I am a thing that once was loved and cuddled and kissed and tucked in.  but not anymore ever again.  maybe the physical act but never again with sincerity because the chris i manufactured that day when mommy finally picked me up was wise and did not want to be hurt again.  EVER again.  i never want to be hurt like that again because it 

ruined my soul that day and it told me that i can never trust anyone with all of my heart and intimacy and the monster came into being.  

can you trust me?  maybe.  you have a lot of time to prove yourself.  i’ll toss you a chris to interact with in the meantime but the chris at the bottom of the well has a hell of a time reaching the opening and it may take a while.  

this is your warning.  only a couple people know me.  really know me.  sometimes they have to climb down into the well and be with me down there and hold me.  i made a dry space down there with a fire and a place to sit or lay down.  i was able to do that when my twisted brain began to heal.  beth helped me heal.  even mom helped me heal.  the dry place is spreading.  when i drink, it shrinks and sometimes i fall back into the deepness of the well.  but when i am sober the dry place grows and i think that maybe someday it might cover up the deepness of the well and stairs will appear on the side of the wall.  

hope is a great thing to have.  i lived for many years without it.  God made no sense to me.  he still doesn’t most of the time.  but i am learning.  i don’t know what he is doing or what he wants with us but i want to know and i will continue to invite him into my life and my thoughts and actions.  i am patient in that regard.  

i love you, whoever reads this.

The Squirrel War

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Squirrel War

I was riding today, doing a typical training ride on the much vaunted Chicane Loop.  i created this loop, which is perfect for interval training and wildlife observation.  On any given day, one might observe any of the following:  wild turkeys, red tail hawks, coyotes, fox, peacocks, rabbits, chipmunks, deer, turkey vultures, bald eagles, and of course, squirrels. I have seen all of these animals in this small rectangle which measures around 3.4 miles from start to finish and includes a tree lined, shaded, sharp downhill chicane which runs past a 19th century cemetery, over a creek crossing, blindly around a right-hander and into a short, steep uphill run into a gravelly left hander which delivers you into an inevitable headwind and a choice:  continue straight and ride around in the wind and fields of Whitestown and zionsville (which is really not a bad thing), or make a right turn and experience the awesome wonder and sometimes angry reality of the Chicane Loop.  The thing has been my training partner on countless VO2 and threshold efforts during which I have experienced much anguish and terrible pain.  I use it as a tool.  It is a tool.  It is a very sharp tool which is capable of transforming a normal human being into a vicious, overdriven machine which punches its way onto the edge of physical limits and blasts holes in those limits with sheer force of will and stubborn idealism.  The person who rides the chicane loop as it is meant to be ridden will become faster, stronger, and possibly sociopathic.  But…such is the state of mind of many of the greatest bicycle racers of all time, a group to which I certainly do not belong.  

Having said all that…STAY AWAY FROM MY LOOP!  And, most importantly, do not disturb the squirrels.  They very obviously run the show over there.  And there certainly is a show.  And there certainly is a chain of command among the wildlife on the Loop.  All I can tell you about it is that when the squirrels are present in any of their sectors, the rest of the animals either flee or cower in fear and avert their eyes.  The squirrels, you see, are warmongers.  I will attempt to explain what I mean by relating a scene into which I inadvertently rode today (so back to the ride I began to explain at the start of this thing).  It was so disturbing I hesitated to finish my ride.  For one thing, as I approached a section of road I had been on hundreds of times before, I was suddenly beset, on all sides, by squirrels.  They were clearly communicating with each other very loudly with what can only be described as high-pitched bitching.  And they were getting themselves organized.  I slowed down so as not to hit one of them with my bike and suddenly found myself surrounded by the angry buggers.  There were at least thirty of them on the ground and probably another 200 in the trees surrounding our little battlefield.  i use the term “battlefield” with certainty because these squirrels were very quickly organizing into regiments and platoons and I think I even saw one sitting in the crook of a tree with half a walnut shell that he had gnawed into a sharp, spear-like object.  

I came to a stop and sort of froze where i was in the middle of the road.  There were huge maple trees on either side of the road and a lot of dogwoods and those scrubby little cyprus bushes lining the roadside.  Plenty of cover for the army which was quickly organizing and getting ready to start some shit.  The sky was overcast and it was very humid outside.  I was sweating from my previous efforts on the loop and the sweat dripped conspicuously in the road all around me.  I wanted to wipe the sweat from my brow but I was terrified to move.  I saw a few turkey vultures sitting about thirty meters away in another yard.  They looked on with a knowing resignation… a sort of lazy acceptance that something was about to happen and when it was over, there would be food.  The squirrels seemed to have made the best of their limited IQs and were organized into groups of varying sizes all around me.  I was genuinely afraid at this point as I noticed several other “snipers” hiding in the trees with sharpened walnut shells that seemed to be aimed at me.  But then…something happened that changed my perspective on this bizarre scene.

One of the snipers suddenly let loose with his projectile but it sailed right past my left ear and into the left thigh of one of the squirrels on the opposite side of the road.  The injured squirrel squealed in agony and began running quickly around in circles with blood streaming out of his wound and as he did so, he produced a flag from a pouch attached to the other leg and waved it violently over his head.  One of the other squirrels in a different group on the same side of the road flew into a rage and issued forth the loudest, angriest tirade of squeals and chirps i have ever heard from one of these bushy-tailed bullies.  He motioned franticly at all of the other groups on his side of the road and they all suddenly charged forth into the road and right past me toward the other side.  At the same time, the squirrels on the opposite side of the road began to charge as well.  I suddenly realized that I was not in danger at all (except from errant projectiles or possibly one of the larger ones jumping onto my head from an overhead branch).  Now my only problem was how to extract myself from this furry and very vocal chaos.  The beasts were literally all around me and fighting in earnest, using every weapon at their disposal, including claws, sharpened sticks and walnut shells, and even teeth.  The squeaks and chattering were deafening and I decided I had better get the hell out of there asap or I would soon be surrounded by a bunch of dead squirrels and hungry turkey vultures.  Those wily bastards had probably seen this sort of thing many times and were simply waiting a little way off for the violence to cease so they could eat in peace.

Just as I was about to make a break for it, a huge brown labrador retriever came barreling through this grizly scene and all the squirrels suddenly scattered as fast as possible to the nearest trees.  The lab began hungrily gobbling up the victims scattered across the road…barely even noticing me standing there.  The turkey vultures began to walk slowly toward the area but were clearly pissed off about the presence of the dog.  i decided to ride away and finish my loop but as soon as I clipped in and began to pedal, I heard the distinct sound of a very high-pitched voice speaking english in a broken, squeaky sort of manner.  I turned around and scanned the trees from where I thought the sound came and my gaze came to rest on one of the biggest squirrels who had been present.  He wore a red scarf tied around his left leg, which was soaked in blood and I instantly recognized him as the squirrel who had been injured by the walnut shell.  I really just thought i heard a squeak which sounded a bit like some words but then he repeated what he had said.  He said “thank you, outlander, for staying neutral during the battle…but the time for neutrality will soon be over and you must pick a side.”  He looked at me as if he was looking right through me.  The thousand-inch stare.  I’ve seen it before.  It was on this rabbit that comes and eats our radishes in the summer.  Bugger.  Anyway i looked back at him and nodded slowly in agreement and with a fist-to-chest gesture, I pledged my allegiance to this majestic leader of squirrels who had sustained a terrible wound but persevered to lead his army in a bloody confrontation over….hell, I don’t know.  Maybe some walnuts?  Or maybe territory?  A long-standing feud like the Hatfields and McCoys?  These things ran through my mind for maybe twenty seconds before I turned my gaze away and rode on.  

I often thing about that terrible scene and wonder if Girple (that is what he told me his name was) is still alive and if he is still leading his army in pursuit of, uh…something or other.  It really doesn’t matter in the long run because squirrels only live around five to ten years and most die before they reach adulthood.  Also they have very small brains and probably forget things very easily and quickly.  Silly little varmints…

I finished my ride lost in thought so I imagine I was going pretty slow.  But a profound experience like that demands some contemplation…some introspection.  It causes a person to examine his life and make an honest and earnest search for an ideology worth fighting for.  Worth dying for.  The squirrels all have this.  Why can’t we?