Damsliding

041518

I just walked across the street from my house to speak with a police officer who was in the process of releasing a man child from within his shiny white Carmel PD-issued SUV.  I am currently wearing shorts and I do not have shoes on and the grass in the front yard was cold and so was the street.  The officer asked me if he could help me.  I declined help and asked him what the hell was going on in my neighborhood that necessitated two cop cars and a half-hour tongue-lashing of a moppy-headed tweener.  He said it was nothing serious.  I then said something that astounded me and probably startled the young blue-blood standing in the middle of the street with his slightly baggy shirt and pants and a loaded nine or 45 or whatever in his holster:  “Why didn’t you just shoot him?”  The kid had a shitload of hair on his head.  Like, it was sprouting out like an enormous sea-anemone or something.  Oh shit!  I just thought of it!  The kid had stolen Gallagher’s Hair!  It was figuratively Gallagher’s Hair!!  Way too much hair for one person to deal with.  Kid’s parents are probably going broke buying enough shampoo to wash that stuff.  Anyway the kid was disappearing around the corner while I was walking across the street to meet the young officer and my feet were cold and still are.  

The officer was in shock…I think…he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, fresh out of the academy…and I could feel a tension between us that was building up at tremendous speed because he didn’t know what to say next and I didn’t know what to say next and so I just sort of laughed nervously and I think I maybe tried to physically push down the invisible tension force-field between us with my hands.  That obviously looked stupid and awkward and neither of us knew what the next play was so I just said “Just some dumbass kid up to some mischief or something?”  And all of a sudden everything just relaxed.  He said that the kid had been growing weed in the woods across the street from MY HOUSE.  Well why in the hell hadn’t I thought of that?…I thought.  Never mind.  I could never grow weed.  NEVER.  Perish the thought immediately.  Back to reality.  But really?  The kid was growing a crop of marijuana in a small parcel of wooded land in a suburban housing development in Carmel, Indiana?  What an enterprising son of a bitch. 

 All of this is just a preamble to what I was really thinking of writing about tonight, which is the story of the night that I almost died at the bottom of the dam (is that really how you spell dam?  seems like a really wimpy word…dam.  it has nothing to prop itself up against.  and it literally is a thing that props something up…namely, water.  it needs another letter I think.  alas I am not the dictionary and so I can do nothing to help this poor word) at Geist reservoir.  This is a Wirtz story and for those of you who do not know Wirtz…well, you should.  Because he is a great man and has been my friend and loyal companion on many dark, twisted, death-defying adventures (literally five times that I can think of…and that means that I have a lot more to write about after this piece of whatever comes out of my head at 9:27 PM on Sunday the 15th of April, 2018)  

Wirtz/Richter stories from the era of which I will be writing tonight are almost always cursed to  end in either complete manly and glorious triumph over some preposterous made-up Quixotic challenge-OR…riding home in shame to our parents’ houses in one of our vehicles which most certainly acquired some significant damage, which we were very keen to keep hidden from the deadly view of the parents who would certainly do the unthinkable act of grounding us from those very vehicles!  Now…the thing about dam sliding is this:

You need to have a plan of action.  You need supplies.  You need the right people.  Personalities matter very much in these circumstances.  You need the right temperature and humidity and you absolutely MUST pay attention to any and all recent rainfall from the reservoir to wherever the water starts up north.  No fatties and no weaklings either…you have to be able to take care of yourself out there and that means knowing how to swim and how to climb up a muddy hill really fast, I mean REALLY fast if you see the red and blue lights a comin’.  Also…It helps to have a good mixture of boys and girls because the boys want to show off and the girls…well…the girls, they just really can make a night extraordinary, can’t they?  Yes they can.  Right, the next thing you need is a getaway driver and a vehicle, preferably a pickup truck so you can fit a lot of wet people in the back of the thing and speed away into the night.  You also need to have it stashed in a convenient, yet darkened section of one of those nearby communities along Fall Creek Road. You should be wearing whatever the hell you want to wear because you are about to do one of the most dangerous, yet strangely fun things that God himself just had to have invented and that is Dam sliding.  Yes, dam sliding.  You literally just jump off of a piece of concrete into the water just about five or ten feet from the top of the spillway, swim up to the spillway, and sit there.  You can sit there as long as you want to.  You could sit there for an hour if it suited you but I bet you wouldn’t because it would be boring and you would have to deal with all manner of whatever muck and crud ends up in the water that goes over the spillway.  Also there are huge carp there.  They swim around in circles just eating garbage all day long and growing.  I shit you not I have seen carp there that probably weighed a couple hundred pounds.  And those damned fish have enormous mouths.  They open up to the size of a goddam volleyball!  Certainly large enough to eat a baby. So it’s a good thing that most babies don’t go dam sliding.  

That was like a primer on dam sliding.  I hope you get the gist of it.  I did it loads of times and I am still alive and yes, I must say that I would recommend it if it were legal and if it had not rained too much in the week prior to the event.  So now on to the Wirtz/Richter story of the night.  I selected this one out of my memory-mansion because it is the simplest one with which to start.  Mark and I were bored one evening and being that we were 19 year old boys with no need for sleep and plenty of cheap beer which we had stolen, very very slowly over the course of three months from our parents’ garage refrigerators, we were ripe for some feggin action!  

Wait, wait, wait.  Maybe I should hold off on the story until I explain how most damsliding trips are run.  There are two decidedly different atmospheres for the two types of dam sliding groups that usually make these portentous expeditions.  On the one hand, you have the group which contains a mix of three or four boys and an equal amount of girls, and on the other hand, you have just Wirtz and I.  One of these groups will try and be as safe as possible going over that slimy concrete beast and ONE of them will not.  The mixy group will usually start off the night by doing the Dance of Joy from Masthead to the Dam while doing their best to be invisible to any motorist who might happen to be driving along that section of road at three o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday.  The Dance of Joy is performed as such:  strip all of your clothing off.  Shoes are optional.  I would recommend them for the climb back up the muddy bank.  Sing whatever song comes into your head at that moment and just start kicking up your legs one at a time in a sort of makeshift dance-walk thing as fast as possible to the dam road.  You NEED to be fast.  The cops around there used to be called Shorewood Patrol and those fuckers were known to hide in bushes with nightvision due to all of the capers we had perpetrated around those parts which to this day are still unsolved and still legendary.  So you need to be fast and you need to pick the exact, correct moment of when to start.  It may take a few trips before you get the hang of it but keep coming back and you’ll be a pro in no time.  

So back to Wirtz and Richter and the terrible calamity that befell them.  A quick primer on Wirtz:  He is absolutely and literally the most enigmatic man I have ever met and I can confidently say that I probably know him, the real him, better than anyone else aside from his mother, his brother Neil, and his wife and two daughters.  He’s the best of the best and he’s given me courage at times when I felt like death was a real honestly good option and I’ve probably punched some sense into him (sometimes literally) during times when he was manic and maybe was chasing windmills again.  This is a man who hitch-hiked to Alaska by goddam THUMB and satchel and tried to get on a crab boat.  He does not know boundaries.  And if he senses something like one that is anywhere near, you will know it because he will become very, very agitated and will probably want to “smoke a fag” ………as they say in Ireland and he will beeline away from that boundary or just smash right through it.  This is a little aside.  There is a question of legality in all of this and I am well aware of it.  I believe that the statutes of limitations on prosecution of any of the misdemeanor crimes that Mr. Wirtz and I have committed are well and duly expired by now and so I feel at ease with the continuance of my tale.  And as such…I shall continue:

We were not so much outlaw thug criminals as much as just mischievous little leprechauns having our way with the water companies’ happenstance occurring water park which just happened to be five minutes away from our homes.  But  you know what is better than five minutes away from our homes?  Three minutes away from a friend’s home.  And that is why we now bring in Chad.  Wirtz and I could probably have pulled off many of our stunts without the assistance of Chad, plus it just would not have been as much fun at all.  Chad is a little bit like me, a little bit like Wirtz, and, sorry, Chad, but a little bit like 1980s Pauly Shore.  Minus the gross short shorts.  But the personality?  Yup. Plus Chad’s mother stayed up all night doing crafts and shit for Chad’s sister’s cheerleading camps and whatnot.  And she didn’t mind it when we filed past the kitchen table buck naked with huge grins and huge ooother ssstuff just hanging out getting line-dried.  Chad’s mom is seriously one of the sweetest people I have ever met and she was extremely accommodating to maybe around four of us who would do the naked stroll through the kitchen.  Why were we naked?  Because it was 1993 and summer and 90 degrees and humid.  Naked is best under those conditions.  Period.  And we treated Joan as a second mother and what mother has not seen her babies naked?  Huh?  That’s what I thought.  

Chad’s house had a walkout basement which conveniently faced Fall Creek Road just a little way down from the dam.  Chad had recently moved his belongings into the basement and claimed it as his room, which his parents allowed…I think.  To this day I really just don’t know if that was true.  Why else would Joan always be screaming down the stairs at us at three o’clock in the morning to get out and that we have school tomorrow or work tomorrow or be quiet because Suzy’s cheerleading competition is tomorrow and Suzy needs to get her eight hours.  Chad would listen to all of this barrage of orders and ultimatums and ultimately decide to say something like this:  “Fuck off, MOM, close the fucking door we are almost done!!”  

Now…if you are thinking what I am thinking right now, you are probably thinking correctly. My mother would have stormed my hastily-locked door with a battering ram and whacked me across the face with the open, bare hand!  And I sure as shit would have deserved it too!  But to everyone’s astonishment (initially), Joan just simply shrugged it off and chuckled and went back to her crafts.  The thing is, and I knew this, Joan and Chad each knew the other was simply playing a part in a long-running Butler Family Production and each was a co-executive producer.  Thus they were able to make a good show of it while still maintaining a healthy mother/son relationship.  As a matter of fact, I know that Chad loves his parents very much and that they love him.  i actually lived with Chad for a very brief period of time back in the nineties.  And I got to know a bit about the family.  Good peoples.  

Back to damsliding, or rather the Legend of the Night When Two Local Muttonheaded Ninnies Made a Terrible Decision and Nearly Killed Themselves Inside a Spillway at the Geist Dam.  The story starts with our heroes drinking a fair amount of Busch Light beer in cans.  Much laughter and conversation ensued as the boys became light-hearted and bold due to the 5% alcohol in the nasty swill.  Busch Light really is not a tasty beer.  The boys, or rather we (I will now switch to first person point of view) probably had a few too many.  That was usually inevitable.  The summer of 1992 was a very special time in the lives of a very special group of people.  We basically lived in a commune that we created in a large piece of land which included two houses, a large section of Fall Creek Road, and the entrance to the neighborhood of Windjammer, in which the Butler house was nestled.  We were, for some reason, very fond of fucking up the entrance to Windjammer.  It was well-lit with a couple of large floodlights which illuminated a couple of landscape mounds with some evergreen trees and, of course, the neighborhood sign.  We liked to periodically steal the neighborhood sign and see how long it took for them to replace it.  We also liked to take the lightbulbs from the two floodlights…just for the hell of it.  I don’t know why we thought that was so funny, but we did.  The Butler house has already been discussed so you know that we were always welcome there and Joan loved us.  The other house we used in our commune belonged to Matt Confer, or rather his parents.  Fuck, I keep getting off-track of the Wirtz/Richter Tale of Danger and Intrigue and Stupidity.  We can come back to the commune and Confer’s house and emptying the change jar to get enough money to buy a fifth of Crowne Russe, which is the cheapest, shittiest vodka, possibly in the world.  I think we paid around $7.00 a fifth and it made many a member of our group very ill.  Dammit here is the story:

We drank a bunch of beer then, if I remember correctly, drove my little red Nissan truck over to the neighborhood directly adjacent to the dam.  That was close enough that we could make a quick, clandestine getaway in case of a raid by Shorewood.  And believe me, we fucked with them so many times that we knew their patrol schedule to a T and could usually predict when they would be passing by the dam road (I just love saying that).  So we parked the truck and quickly made the forty or so yards from the entrance to the neighborhood to the dam road.  Once there we ran down the road to the gate and then to the utility shed and the edge of the actual dam.  And that is where the meat of the story begins.

Here is a step by step guide to damsliding:  

1. Jump from the concrete wall into the water about 20 feet in front of the dam.

1. Swim around joyfully, contemplating what position you will assume when you actually do the slide.

1. Try not to get a disease from the gruesome cesspool into which you just willingly jumped.

1. Swim to the spillway and straddle it while assessing the depth and speed of the water going over it.

1. Hike your other leg over the spillway wall, put  your feet together with your arms crossed over your chest.

1. Slide!  

1. When you reach the bottom, allow the current to push you out.  Do not fight the undertow.

1. Swim to the bank and climb up the muddy embankment to the flimsy little fence at the top and climb over it to the blessed asphalt pad adjacent to the dam where all your friends are waiting for you.

1. Scream in triumph!…as you have just done a fucking daredevil thing that most of your buddies don’t have the stones to do.  

1. Remove all of your clothes and proceed directly to Chad’s house where festivities are certain to be happening.

So that is how you damslide.  It usually goes smoothly, just like in the guide above.  But…sometimes it does not.  When Mark and I are in sync and are dead set on getting into some mischievous adventure, very bad things tend to happen.  We tend to take things too far.  I think there is a certain personality type that cannot be truly satisfied in life unless they quite regularly have a sort of very visceral, awe-inspiring, almost…shocking experience that very nearly nudges them over the edge.  Hunter Thompson described the edge better than anyone ever could in the Hell’s Angels book.  I will not quote it but suffice to say that Mark and I are of that personality type and we were never satisfied back then unless our “expeditions” included a chance of death.  I am quite serious about that.  I think we just needed to thread ourselves into the world in such a way that the experiences we created were so elevated…so sublime that we were left exhausted, both physically and mentally.  At least that’s what our over inflated egos were tossing around inside our big, bloated minds.  That’s not to say that one or two of our outings weren’t sublime, in some sense.  I think that on occasion we produced a pretty damned good adveture, worthy of an article in Outside magazine or some such rag.  

Anyway I really am going to tell the story of how we almost died at the bottom of the dam now.  Mark and I had been somewhere doing something and were probably bored so we decided to go damsliding.  So we did.  We probably did the “four-timers” club thing, which is where you slide down the dam four times in four different positions:  feet first, head up—head first, head up—feet first, head down with arms supporting you—head first facing down with arms in front supporting you.  That is the four-timers club.  We probably did that or maybe tried to slide down the damned thing on our feet.  That part of the story is not really important.  The important part comes now…when we get tired of sliding and start to explore at the bottom of the dam.  You see, if the water flow is not too fast, you can stand at the bottom and walk around.  The dam is made of concrete and the bottom is curved to aid the flow of water.  There is a lot of algae and slime but it is quite walkable.  So we walked around the length of the thing and came upon one of the concrete walls that supports the embankment leading to the road.  The thing you need to know is that dams have little doorways at the bottom that can open and close to control the flow of water in the dam.  And we found one.  And so, naturally, we went inside.  To get inside you needed to swim under water and through the gate and about five or six feet of concrete tunnel to get to the other side of whatever the thing is and the most terrifying thing was that you didn’t even know if there was room to stand up once you got to the other side and you didn’t know if there was even air.  Add to that the fact that it was night and once inside the submerged tunnel there was absolutely NO LIGHT.  I mean it was as if you were actually blind.  I could not see a thing and I was scared shitless.  We made it through the tunnel and into some sort of chamber underneath the dam that was obviously used to control water flow.  We stood up and thankfully the depth of the water was the same as outside the dam so we had air.  But, as I mentioned before, there was honestly no light and we could not see our hands in front of our faces.  Mark and I decided to hold on to each other so we wouldn’t get lost.  At first we just stood inside the entrance to the chamber and tried and tried to see something…nope.  I have never been scared of the dark but I don’t think I’ve ever really experienced true, actual dark like this.  I admit I was terrified and I know damn well that Mark was also.  

So what would you do in this situation?  Call it an experience and immediately swim back through the tunnel to the safety of the gently flowing spillway?  That’s what we should have done but nooooo no no.  We were very very close to the edge and when you get that close and you have a friend with you who is so like-minded that communication is instinctual and sthere is no need for words when you need to make life or death decisions, well…

I’ll try and explain the feeling.  It starts like a small electric current that originates in your chest and radiates throughout your body.  The current gets stronger as you approach the edge.  You feel electricity and energy coursing through your core and your arms and your legs and suddenly everything gets very icy feeling and also very hot at the same time.  Your heart begins to pound in a way that is very distinct from the way it may pound in, say, a track meet.  It almost beats in rhythm with your carefully timed movements…if you stop and stand very still to listen for something, your heart stops and waits with you just to give you that little extra stillness needed to really listen to your immediate environment.  Your muscles begin to tense and your senses are all magnified…it’s almost too much to process.  As you move dangerously close to that hideous yet magnetic place (and it is a place, it is both a physical place—where you currently exist, and a mental place—your current state of mind) your body and mind revert to an ancestral, even archetypal state wherein the mid-brain takes over and all semblance of ego and personality are locked safely away so they do not interfere with the business at hand, which is of course, survival.  And then comes a feeling of resignation  and peace as you realize that you WILL go forward with the task at hand and you DO accept the grave danger that comes along with it.  There is a sort of buzz and a sense of being locked in to something and nothing and no one could break this sort of preternatural concentration.  

And that is it.  It is the most satisfying feeling in the world to get to that point, survive whatever predicament you were in that caused you to get there, and wind up at a steak and shake somewhere, anywhere, drinking coffee and drying yourself off with napkins.  

We decided, very much like idiots, to use our remaining senses, blind as we were, to explore the inside of the chamber.  

Little 5 -- Spring sputters in like an old jalopy -- Conor McGregor killed boxing

042218 — Little 500 - Spring is sputtering in like an old jalopy - Conor McGregor killed boxing.

So I have this other story going in a separate piece and it’s kind of nice and I think it works well…not too weird, just grazing the surface.  I think I will put it out in a couple of sections because it is getting long and that’s what she said.  Sorry could not be helped.  Now—I think I will put it out in two pieces.  It kind of feels like a chapter of something.  Maybe it will be and who knows and I just like to tappy tap tap the keys.  I just ate a whole quart of blueberries plus a pint of ice cream and some other stuff.  I guess I was hungry so, uh, why not just Go for it?  So, yeah, I will put that story out in a couple of blog pieces and you all can tell me what you think.  If you care.  I don’t expect many of you do.

Little 500 was, for “my boys”, in a word—heartbreaking.  These men had trained so long and so hard to be in the best shape of their lives in order to deliver a superior performance on race day and it just didn’t happen.  It was not in the cards.  Cutters won, again..., and as some consolation, Gray Goat got second (and I am actually very happy for them and some of their riders will be riding for Zone-6 / Gray Goat devo this road season).  We made some mistakes calling the race at key moments and we did not utilize our resources as well as we could have.  I feel such a sense of responsibility to these guys and it just sucks that they didn’t get the result that they deserved.  And they did deserve better.  Four solid riders followed my training plans and did the workouts I prescribed for seven months.  SEVEN MONTHS!!  Seven months of living like monks among monkeys in the Sigma Chi house and keeping their eyes on the prize.  I just cannot believe it’s over.  These guys lived the life of a bike racer.  They ate well, slept well, tracked their metrics and used the training software so I could analyze their rides.  I think they didn’t even drink!  And we didn’t get it done.  And we are all bummed.  Super bummed.  But…life goes on and they will get over it and we will have another strong team next year.  Plus I get three of them riding for me on the Zone-6 / Gray Goat team this road season.  They are so feggin strong and I imagine they will dominate all of the races they enter as Cat 5 and 4 racers and cat up quickly (most of the team is comprised of Little 500 riders and they typically do not have much experience with crits or road races).  Enough about that for now.  I plan to write a piece about Little 500 wherein I write about the race (of course), the track, the equipment, our Super Hubs, the riders, the dynamic between the riders and the relationships that form between the riders and the coach (me).  I am still learning it but I find it fascinating the more years I go to this race.  Look for that in the next couple weeks.  

So on now to the the vexing fact that it is clearly still February outside even though it is really April and I have to wear leg warmers on every ride, plus arm warmers or a full jacket, plus gloves, plus ear warmers, plus shoe covers, plus a small can of spray paint with which I intend to mark the CHICANE LOOP!!  This would be such a great circuit race if we could get the permissions.  It’s the Bo Jackson of loops.  It really is.  If the Chicane Loop could stand up, shake off all the soil and grasses and road debris, and talk, it would taunt and deride riders like the French knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  And it is mine -- and you shall not pass.  

Anyway why can’t I wear shorts and a short sleeve jersey?  These goddam 35 degree mornings are starting to piss me off.  Also I had to mow the back yard today due to all of the “fertilizer” that gets put in the ground at our house.  So I mowed in a sweatshirt which breaks one of my rules.  While mowing the lawn, a man shall wear the following attire:  running shoes, preferebly trail running shoes that are old and dirty, long black socks that rise to just below the calf, no shirt, shorts, athletic, preferably very short, Magnum P.I. short, in order to let the boys dangle without hindrance so as to breathe the fresh, yet fleeting air of freedom!  Trust me, they will love you for it and if you are very, very good, you may find one morning a shiny new Susan B Anthony dollar under your venerable giblets.  (Some of you may only fine a nickel, or a dime, or even a penny…these little gifts generally correspond to the diameter of your very own rocky—mountain—oysters).  Aaaanyway, so it’s been cold and I’m not as fit as I would like to be right now.  But I’ve been hitting it pretty hard the past few weeks.  Those of you who saw me at Marian saw a shell of the racer I was last year.  But no worries…I’m taking care of business.  I’ll be good to go shortly.  

Now I want to briefly touch on boxing.  I was, and still am when the mood strikes, an ardent boxing fan.  I love the history of the sport and all the wacko personalities that came along with the title holders.  I even love Mike Tyson.  I love Joe Frazier and Prince Naseem Hamed (what a fucking train wreck he turned out to be).  I love Sugar Ray and Roberto Duran.  Arturo Gatti had more heart than any other boxer I’ve ever seen.  I even love de la Hoya, though he could be a downright wanker sometimes.  Larry Holmes is a piece of crud that you pick off the bottom of your shoe.  but, by far my favorite boxer of all time is Muhammad Ali.  Pre army controversy, when he was still Cassius Clay, well...holy shit he was fast.  He has to be the fastest heavyweight of all time (remember, we are talking PRE draft refusal Ali).  Mike Tyson was very fast in the late eighties when he was in his prime but in a different way.  Anyway i would have loved to have seen them fight.  If only that were possible.  If it was 1989 Mike, he probably would have won, but Ali would have found a way to get under his skin and I think it would've gone the distance.  

Ali was so smart.  His ring intelligence was unmatched and his spatial awareness and anticipation of his competitor’s punches were preternatural.  And he always gave a great interview.  He stood up for what he believed in and has, since his diagnosis of Parkinson’s, used his fame and influence for the good of humanity.  He was simultaneously a trash-talking, spontaneous poet in the ring, a very serious activist for human rights and a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war, yet at times, a playful, clown-prince who told jokes and held high court whether at a press conference or simply in his hotel room.  I think it is a sign of excellence in a man if he can, at once, be very serious and dedicated to whatever it is that he truly loves to do in life yet take the time to kneel down and clown around with a child for a few minutes.  Ali was always keen on bringing something positive into the world.  We need more men with character like that.

On to the state of boxing as it stands right now:  boxing sucks.  MMA has taken over the pugilist market like a Sith Lord taking over the Jedi Temple.  It is completely amazing.  And let me tell you this:  boxing cannot be saved.  That other distinct species of the human race of which Mencken spoke needs a blood-sport to be sufficiently entertained.  MMA is the ultimate pugilist sport.  No holds barred, nearly gloveless, and a mix of basically any and all martial arts in the world.  Just people beating the shit out of each other until the floor of the cage is very nearly covered in blood.  Boxing is a Nokia flip-phone and MMA is the iPhone X.  Boxing has most of the same buttons and speakers as MMA but MMA has a shitload more color and sound quality and storage and complete tib/fib breaks.  Boxing had its chance with Hamed and Pacquiao and Iron Mike and de la Hoya, and high-powered personalities can sure make or break an organization, but boxing has a fatal flaw; it is too safe.  Also it can be quite boring in the upper weight classes.  but yes…it is too safe.  People do not want to see bruises or small cuts above the eye inflicted by 10 ounce gloves with a ref always ready to step in if one fighter appears to be on the brink of unconsciousness.  They want to see and hear immediate and steady punches, kicks, takedowns, and submissions.  They want to hear the crack of bone on bone and see and feel and taste that acrid mixture of sweat and blood as it sprays off a fighters head.  They want faces out of EA Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death.  They want to ponder the fact that death or at least serious permanent brain damage or maybe paralysis could occur as a result of these fights and they want the raw, ancestral excitement that goes along with it.  

I must admit that I have watched some MMA and yes, it is exciting and yes, I do like Conor McGregor because he is an Irish hooligan who doesn’t give a crap about playing life safely.  He just goes out and does what his heart tells him to do!  BUT…I do miss boxing’s glory days.  it is a strange thing to think that I like to watch people intentionally hurting each other for money and glory.  Because, let’s face it, that’s all it is…two guys desperately trying to inflict enough blows to their opponent’s head to cause a serious concussion or possibly a cerebral hematoma in order to win a funny looking oversized belt covered in satin frills and medals and an enormous, shiny belt buckle.  And maybe 20 million dollars.  So……ah hell.  I’m tired.  I’m going to bed.  

Later,  C

The season begins--Chatt Training Camp--Speeding is fun--Going uphill is HARD

040118

It might as well be lobsters crawling out of my ears….  What is this place?  Where are we?  It is April 1 and I am watching it snow balls deep outside and NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT.  Why is this happening to me?  2018 is meant to be the year of Richter’s Redemption, after all.  I am gordram feggin pissed off about this weather and no amount of watching Return of the Jedi whilst riding the trainer will ease my suffering!  Can anyone help?  To whom must we petition regarding this awful misery?  Zeus?  Achilles?  Shiva?  Jesus?  Siddharta Gautama?  Captain Picard?  I AM SERIOUSLY GOING BERSERKER RIGHT NOW and I need to be riding my bike in the sunshine and heat and doing intervals and whatnot but I can’t because of this shite weather and so Bri and I are reduced to riding the Breakfast of Chicapmions Loop at 7AM because that is the only window in the day when it isn’t pissing down rain or snow or hail or the wind isn’t blasting us at 30mph.  And that is no way to build race fitness, no sireeeeeee…..

The REAL way to build fitness is to go down to Chattanooga and try and keep up with Rachel on those horrible long hills!  WAIT WAIT Wait wait wait wait…just a minute now and slow down and explain yourself, Christopher.  Right.  On we go.  So…I have long wanted to go to Chatt with Bri and Harry and Rachel and the crew and experience this magical mystery tour that they have been hounding me about for years and now I can proudly say that I have properly experienced this very Voluptuous piece of earth and I pronounce it goodeegumdrops.  I rode for three days with the Gray Goat-Bullseye gals and if I thought beforehand that they wouldn’t challenge me enough to get my engine firing, I was very, very wrong.  This is a legitimate, hard-working, dedicated, professional outfit and these girls are fast.  Much power was on display and a whole shitload of twisty, long, grinding, forever going forward and up, up, up and over the horizon black tarmac lent itself to us for the purpose of simple pedaling and paradigm-changing pain.

Ask Rachel what I mean about that last sentence.  We all rode together down in Chatt.  Myself, Bri, Rachel, Harry, Tom, Betsy, and Lil’ Bit (Faith).  Jenette had to stay home for work, unfortunately, but I am told that she can rip legs off with the best of them.  Tom and I drove down after I got off work at 7pm on Thursday.  I picked he and his giant veins up in B-town and we drove at a speed that I calculated would get us there very, very quickly with only a slight risk of a reckless driving conviction.  I drive fast.  I cannot help this.  I will forever drive fast and none of you can convince me that driving at a moderate speed is better.  The left lane is MINE.  The Toyota Prius is a moving speed bump and should you feel the need to nudge one out of your way while driving to work, I think that is acceptable.  

This makes me think of the topic of odds and risk.  Risk is a thing which I have played with all of my life.  The word itself is a very brittle thing.  Risk.  It sounds like it’s made of a bunch of little dry sticks.  Easy to crunch into bits and whisk away into the ether or use as kindling or something.  I will expound upon the topic of risk in another piece, perhaps.  It is worth exploring.  It has colored my life in many deep and fascinating ways and I owe much of my current state of mind, that is to say, a fair bit of peace and happiness, to risk, the teacher.  

So anyway I picked up Tom and we drove at top speed down the highway and into the city streets and then into county roads and smaller and smaller roads that turned into a goat-trail or something…I don’t really know how to properly describe the workmanship of the pavement down in those hollers.  it’s like they just skipped the first three steps of road-building (earth-moving, compacting, leveling - (I really don’t know the first three steps of road building but I assume those three things are usually necessary)) and went straight to dropping hot asphalt on said goat trails just to get the damn job done quicker.  Harry drove us all to get dinner in the Sleek Black Minivan and I almost threw up due to the twists and turns and tree stumps that we had to drive over and my inner ear fluid all sloshing around.  Three pieces of hastily-swallowed pizza later and I was in bed and out like a light in a bunk bed in a dungeon basement underneath Tom and his veins which I was sure would burst at any moment and it was so dark that you just knew that if you had to go pee during the night you would bash your knee on some cabinet or bed frame and that was night one.

The next three days were filled with riding up very long, winding hills chasing Rachel and Faith and Bri as they were doing serious training trying to take Strava segments every chance they got and I was honestly surprised at how fit they all were.  Betsy was nursing an injury but rode like a trooper until her recently-stitched leg wound started ripping open and the blood loss became a very real issue.  Oh the things you have to deal with on training camps…  So uphill forever and ever and I pretty much rode tempo up the hills and went hard when I felt like it and ended up setting a PR for 10-minute power so that was pretty cool.  I enjoyed watching Faith do her best to keep up with Rachel as she was ripping up the steep sections out of the saddle.  Faith is basically like a tiny but very powerful battery that is either on full-blast or shut down completely.  She can fly uphill and does not like it when Rachel drops her on the steepest sections.  Definitely one to watch this year and for years to come.  When the rides were over she was asleep within minutes of reaching home base in her blanket tents.  Fun stuff.  It’s interesting getting beat by girls on those long climbs.  Harry, Tom, and I took it in stride, I think, because we are old and wise and very aware that we may have a heart attack trying to keep up with people who put out almost as much power as us but who weigh half as much.  Getting old sucks.  But we’re not that old.  And we may still have a few wins betwixt us yet to come.  It’s a solid bet.  

THE LAST DAY:  The last day was meant to be a quick couple of climbs over maybe 40 miles or so and then blast off back home.  And that is definitely what we set out to do.  But then climb number three became a topic of choppy-sounding discussion as we pedaled along numbly in the mist.  Suck Creek?  Yeah……..why not we said and don’t worry, Chris, it’s right here!  ….see?  Why do I never know when a climb is about to start?  I hate that shit.  But we started climblng straight away and straight away Rachel attacked out of the saddle and I almost stayed with the rest of the bunch and rode tempo but then something made me jump up and dance on up with the Flying Limey.  Rachel and I rode two-up up that hill and I am not joking when I tell you that it was a transformative experience.  We started out at a good tempo…she probably has a fairly close w/kg to me actually.  No joke.  I am a fairly decent masters crit racer and she is a very good national-caliber road and crit racer and I think we were just by chance evenly matched as far as uphill speed was concerned that day.  

The weather on the hill was that sort of eerily still misty-thick air where you can actually see the water vapor whirling around you and sticking itself to every thread of clothing and every hair on your body.  The sides of the road were heaving, puffing grey shrouds and you had to be very careful not to run over a squirrel or a blacksnake darting out of that thick nebula in which we found ourselves.  And on and on we rode up and up and I was out of the saddle half the time, which is how I usually climb hills, and Rachel was smooth in the saddle and we were in a good rhythm up until about the halfway point, which is when Adversity decided to join us in our fun little ride and then I heard Rachel make a sound like a pissed off jackrabbit with one foot caught in a trap.  Was I cracking her?  I certainly didn’t mean to.  I just suddenly had good legs and she just suddenly found herself on the fast train to Deadwood without a ticket.  

At this point in the story, our hero, Rachel Langdon, found herself presented with a distressing situation and a choice to make.  We (all of us bike riders) all have experienced the sensation of knowing we can perform at a certain level on a certain piece of road at a given point in time but at that particular time found ourselves with legs that said “maybe” and a mind that said “I don’t want to.”  This is a very crucial moment in life.  I imagine that most people have been presented with a similar-feeling choice at some point in their lives and it doesn’t necessarily have to do with a sport like cycling.  It could be a business decision, or a move in a game of chess, or even deciding whether or not to put down the wheels on a 747 while landing a redeye flight into JFK.  The point is… did Rachel choose to flail and bail like a loser or did she choose to buck up and follow me as I “encouraged” her up the hill by shouting insults at her in a harsh but loving sort of way and with a very good East End British accent.  Thankfully she chose the latter.  We rode very hard the rest of the way up the hill…very quietly, me leading when necessary and she leading when she got in a good rhythm.  It is quite a nice thing to suffer side by side with someone who knows exactly how you are feeling at that moment and who is also relying on you to be there as a form of psychological aid in their time of pain…and hesitation….and doubt.  And that is how the psychology of that hill played out that day.  Rachel made the correct decision and stomped on the pedals and we went full gas up that damned hill and I think she got the QOM (and I was probably 733rd or so for the segment).  But I know that it took a good deal of guts to make that decision to finish that hill strong with me and I know that that sort of experience shapes and polishes a person’s mind and constitution and both of us left Chatt a little bit stronger, in those regards, than when we got there.  

And that’s just about enough, I think.  It is now around midnight and a Harry Potter movie is playing on the TV and that sounds like a good way to fall asleep.  I will go to Chatt again and I will be more prepared for the hills.  I think I could do some good times up those big brutes if I knew more than ten seconds beforehand that they were starting.  And so I will close by saying these things:  Drive fast enough to truly scare yourself…at least once in your life.  It is so fun.  When faced with a difficult choice involving high risk with potentially high reward, GO FOR IT!  Life is short but it can be very fun if you just take off the blinders and hit the gas every now and then.  Oh and be nice to animals.  You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat living things that are a bit lower on the evolutionary scale.  

I’m out………..snore.

-C

Birthday Blog—Spin4Heroes Recap—Ready to Race?—The many fatuous and imbecilic intricacies of Return of the Jedi

031418

Birthday Blog—Spin4Heroes Recap—Ready to Race?—The many fatuous and imbecilic intricacies of Return of the Jedi

Yesterday was my birthday.  I am 44 now.  I am a middle-aged man.  44 is not so bad a number in and of itself but, on the other hand, it is not a number you would tell a girl at a bar.  “Hey there, we seem to be hitting it off!  Wanna go to the lounge in the back and have a quiet drink together?  By the way…I’m 44.”  Nope, it does not work.  That damned number admits me into a club of which I do not want to be a member.  The mid-life “what the fuck am I doing with my life?” club.  This club is like a high-dive with a disorganized multitude of platforms next to a beautiful, olympic-size pool but the lights are off and it’s pitch black!  So I went into the club and made it up the ladder to the middle platform of the strange and terrible place and was thusly faced with many options from which to continue on.  Each of them requires a jump and a dive and my cardinal traits shout at me to just trust my gut and bull-rush full bore into that unfathomable black ether.  

So I did it.  And it was the right choice.  I won’t delve into what I’m doing now because I’ve already done that in another piece.  But I’m still getting older…flecks of grey hair are appearing now and then when I look at myself in the mirror.  They catch the light just right and shine like little bastard reminders that I can no longer grow my hair out in a skater-cut.  I cut it really short now.  It’s easy.  Cashiers at the grocery ask me if I’m in the military.  “No, I just have lazy hair.”  My eyes are failing me also.  I’ve had better than 20-20 vision as long as I can remember but suddenly, when I turned 40, my eyes went screwy and I needed readers for close up stuff and my left eye was all blurry when I looked at things more than ten feet away.  Went to the optometrist and got all fixed up and now I wear glasses all the time.  So I have the trifecta now:  The number 44, little bastard grey hairs invading my head, and screwy eyes.  Ah well…at least I can still touch the rim when I shoot hoops.  

So Spin4Heroes:  It was a great time as usual.  Our team raised over $4000.00 for the Heroes Foundation!  I rode all four hours and had a great time just hanging out with Don next to me on trainers and riding hard, twenty-minute intervals with our mouths wide open gasping for air and our eyes stinging from the sweat pouring off of our heads.  We could not use fans in the gym because they were tripping breakers with the addition of the sound system.  So the air in the place became as humid as the Amazon basin and I could actually taste the steam coming from my teammates pedaling around me.  Eeeiiichh!  Miserable conditions but very satisfying workout.  I got handshakes and hugs from countless people that I have met throughout the years of owning Motion and I have to say…I really miss those people…you people.  It hit me that I hosted the first Spin4Heroes in the shop with only about ten teams, raising just a few thousand dollars and only eight years later, Vinny has grown the thing into a monster of fundraising that is very professional and very important to the foundation and its fight against cancer.  It really is a profound thing to experience.  Give it a whirl if you have not already.  

Okay let’s get to the fun stuff…racing bikes.  I am ready.  I have been training my butt off.  My training has been a little different than last year.  Some pretty non-traditional stuff.  I have not been on the bike all that much.  I do get my rides in, mind you…at least three a week, but I have been running a shitload also and doing some pretty interesting and difficult work in the gym.  I’m not going to go into detail about what I’m doing but it seems to be working so far.  We’ve also done a few Wilbur rides…a few hundred milers, a lot of trainer rides, a lot of running, a lot of hours.  I want to make my legs and my body more durable and overall fit this year.  So I pound the shit out of them in various ways and challenge myself and it really fucking hurts like hell sometimes to the point that I am unable to stand up and have to lay on the ground gasping.  It’s interesting…some racers try to hide their training and make it secret.  I guess they think they’ll be like ninjas when racing starts.  Hiding in the bunch and then striking with all of that secret training backing them up so that they can create unstoppable breakaways or lay down bullet-train sprints.  It makes me laugh.  It really is silly.  We all train really hard and we all want to hide the fact that we are fit as a fiddle and capable of winning races or at least making them hard and helping a teammate win.  Why hide that fact?  So here it is for me:  I feel really strong on the bike right now.  I am not very sharp because I have done absolutely NO speedwork…but I am strong.  I can probably go in any break and do my pulls and I can probably throw down a 75% sprint at the end.  I plan on starting to do speed work and more VO2 stuff now and by the time Fat and Skinny comes around, all of you powerhouse regional teams better watch out.  Our team is strong this year with the addition of Justin Kirk, who has a similar power profile to me and has been riding his ass off all winter on the road and on the trainer.  The boy can lay down a sprint and has already proven that he can be at the front in most races.  I watched him get better and better last year and got so scared of him that I had to put him on our team for fear that he would beat me this year!  Anyway, we are going to race hard and hey you, TRH and Zipp and OhioVelo (Riverpoint) and anyone else we encounter…we’re gonna BEAT YOU this year!  HAHAHAHA!!!  Yeah, I said it.  I am calling you out.  Team Heroes and/or Gray Goat/Bullseye are gonna be super strong this year and I am excited to get going.  This weekend is an omnium in Louisville.  I cannot race Saturday but I can go on Sunday.  If it’s not raining and freezing cold I might be there.  Or I might just do another hundo just to top off the tank before I start ripping legs off.

That’s all I want to talk about regarding bike racing.  I saved the weirdest topic for last.  Return of the Jedi.  Yes, the movie.  A couple of us at work have been watching this fine film and dissecting its many oddball scenes and goofy characters.  Overall, the film works well as a conclusion to the war against the Empire but there are many, MANY things in this movie that I cannot help but criticize and, frankly, laugh my ass off at.  So here is a list of these things that is very incomplete, and necessarily so, because if I included all of the foolhardy scenes and characters and dialogue and fight choreography that intertwine and bind this film together, this piece would be many more pages long.  Enjoy:

• C3PO basically just sucks.
• Leia says that “somehow, I’ve always known” that Luke is her brother.  Yet she full on open-mouth kisses him in The Empire Strikes Back.  Come on now…..
• When Wicket first finds Leia, she is unconscious next to the big log.  She was hit so hard, presumably on the head, when she crashed her Speeder, that she was knocked unconscious.  That means concussion.  Yet, somehow, Wicket the teddy bear Ewok startles her awake and she displays absolutely no symptoms of a head injury and proceeds to make nice with the little furry bugger.
• About ten minutes later Leia appears in a dress and with braided hair.  Where the fuck did the dress come from?  Who braided her hair?  What was she doing in that little hut before Luke and Han were brought up to be roasted?
• Why doesn’t Luke just use the Force to untie their bindings and escape?  Couldn’t Luke just Force lift all the Ewoks around him up into the air and simply walk away?  
• When Leia holds the “thermal detonator” in Jabbas chamber as a threat to force Jabba to accept the financial terms of the agreement to hand over Chewy, what does she plan to do if she has to go through with her threat?  She is holding the bomb.  Will she blow up the chamber and herself if Jabba will not pay the sum of “fifty thousand”?  (fifty thousand WHAT, by the way)  This does not make sense.  
• Does Jabba have a restroom?  Or does he simply piss and shit on that rolling platform of his while one of his pals mucks it all up?  
• Why does Vader wear a cape?  WTF?  What does it do?  Is it like me wearing a necktie?  Both are useless pieces of fabric that are very silly when you think about it.
• Where does the Empire get all the energy to power all of their shit??? 
• This one is from Empire:  Why did the Empire use At-Ats to attack the rebel base?  They are clearly very, VERY slow moving and very top heavy.  And why did they land them so far away from the base?  Those things took forever to get near the base and were easily defeated by simply tripping them with a big string.  If finding and destroying the rebel base was so important to the Empire, why did they choose such ridiculous and incompetent vehicles to accomplish the task?  

I really could go on and on and on about this but it would take maybe a week or so of constant typing.  We have watched Empire so many times now that I can basically recite the entire thing upon request.  I put this film in the same state room as the Rocky Horror Picture Show due to its highly memorable dialogue and weird, yet endearing characters.  Empire is a great film.  It is not the best film of the Star Wars franchise.  That honor goes to The Empire Strikes Back, as everyone knows.  I have to say, though, that the Last Jedi really does make a strong challenge for that spot.  At any rate…I will continue to play Return of the Jedi at least once a week at the store if anyone is interested in watching.  Cory, Dallas, and I have a rollicking good time picking the thing apart and pointing out all of its illogical, irrational, and muddle-headed nuances.  

Yub Yub,

Chris

Wilbur ride, beet juice, old man power

021118

It’s all stress and response, really.  Stress, response, recovery, get better, stronger, faster, smarter, whatever.  That’s how the world works.  In every respect.  

We ride bikes very hard and it hurts and we sweat and we breathe and we do the chicane loop over and over and vo2 and threshold and zone whatever and then……….fast.  At least that’s what we hope.  

So I did a hundo plus nine last week with some pals and it was really sublime.  I needed the miles and the outside air, due to the many days of forced trainer time in the basement, so I did what anyone with a desire to ride but no plan would do….I called Bri.  Bri Clark is like the Master Control Program from the movie Tron.  She knows everything in the world and when tasked with something to do she moves at the speed of before you even thought of it.  I know that sentence made no sense but that’s all I have to describe her super-human powers of just getting things done.  And if you want to plan a route to Wilbur and back….well, ask and you shall receive…before you even hit send on the damned text button.  And what a route it was, I tell ye.  

I am currently looking at the pictures in my head that are floating around trying to describe the terrain upon which we rode and all I see is World War 1.  The roads were very crude and dotted with great big holes and rubble and i felt like maybe we would be better off on fat bikes…or dune buggies.  I gave up trying to call out pot holes and bumps because I think that those things were more prevalent than smooth tarmac for the majority of the ride.  And Bri planned this route!  I think she had our best interests in mind when she planned it but I don’t think she accounted for the sheer magnitude of road work that our great city was currently stitching together.  No one could have, mind you.  Indianapolis (and probably most major cities at this point) will, from this point on, be in a perpetual state of Orange Barrels and frantically waving hands as it valiantly tries to keep up with the absolutely horrifying rate of road degradation and general aging that naturally happens to all cities but that no one ever wants to acknowledge.  I bet there was a time when one could ride a bike from the north side of the city to the south right through the middle and not even worry about constantly looking down and calling out road hazards to ones cohorts.  But I also bet that that was in the 1950s or something when the world was a much cooler and docile place and everything was black and white and Opie went fishing with his dad, the Sheriff.  And just like that…I went off topic and the paragraph got way too big and confusing.  Let’s start over:

I originally wanted to write about training and racing because that is what is coming up really soon—Spring is just over the horizon and that is when a particular group of grown men will break out the clippers and razors and shave their legs and pretend that they are the local Legends of the Road and carbon fiber.  And it will be fun.  I always enjoy that time of year.  It is refreshing and difficult and many a leg will burn but man oh man do we all enjoy that bike racing stuff.  And that’s all fun and well and good but I need to tell the story of the ride to Wilbur with the crew.  

We started out from Hotel Clark with a decent group:  myself, Harry, Bri, Betsy, Bob Brooks, and Jim Creamer.  All capable of riding a hundred miles and all in decent shape.  We hit the road and straight away Bri and I were two up and riding a decent tempo up front for the first 45 minutes or so.  We went down Spring Mill because of some problem with the Monon Trail or something…I don’t really remember what it was.  Harry mumbled something about it but I was cold and really just wanted to pedal so as to warm up so I did as I was told.  So down Spring Mill Road we hustled.  Not much conversation, strangely enough, at first.  We pedaled smoothly through the maze of roundabouts of which Carmel is made and pointed our way toward Broad Ripple.  Bob was talking about beet juice and CBD oil and I was casually listening when the first wave of pot holes started to appear more and more frequently and I knew then that the ride had begun in earnest and that now I had to actually pay attention to things.  

We began to point out holes and bumps and dead things and eventually made our way through the Ripple and into the Downtown area of the city, through which I absolutely abhor riding…BUT….Bri made the route and she knows all and I follow orders now instead of giving them and so we rode through the grit and grime and holes and bumps and dead things and strange people with dull eyes looking at us through the windows of their hazy old houses like hungry lizards peering at passing flys (flies? fly’s? —what is the plural of fly?).  Past the Monument and the Courthouse and the bricks and tall buildings and shadows.  You know…downtown Indy is really an interesting place if you take the time to look at it in depth.  There are all sorts of little hideaway stores and pubs and tiny restaurants and shops built into the remnants of the many old and wildly unique structures and edifices that stand guard around our proud little big city.  The bold and vibrant colors of Mass Ave and the Cultural Trail and the Bohemian vibe of Fountain Square…the sour smell of city grime.  It’s all amazing and old but packed with New and we rode through it all and the air was warming up and I felt great.  And then! …we got smacked in the face by the South Side.

The city was behind us and suddenly we were on Bluff Road and there was what appeared to be a sort of suburb or something on the left and a big open stretch of grassy field-land and long-ago abandoned concrete foundations on the right.  The roads were somewhat better here and we could keep the speed up but I knew what was coming up pretty soon and there is no way to get to Wilbur but through a bunch of big hills and old roads and on and on we went.  

This year I have not been eating breakfast before most of my rides.  Actually I have not been eating breakfast before rides for quite a while.  But this day I did.  And I felt really good on the bike so I was generally on the front whenever I could be.  Bri also seemed to be feeling good.  I could tell by the look on her face and the insistence on 21+ for the pace.  Harry did his usual thing of fooling around somewhere near the caboose (that’s what she said) for the most part but when it was his turn to pull he was Steady Eddy and the speed would neither surge nor slow no matter what the incline of the road was.  He is the worlds biggest bluffer and do not ever believe it if he tells you that he is “retired” or “out of shape” or “training for TRIRI this year” because he can and will still make you hurt badly on any incline short of 45 degrees.  And so he hit Observatory with much gusto and panache and seemed to want to punish us for something.  I only had a 23 tooth so I had to stand up and pedal hard so I did and went pretty fast up that hill and what the hell was that surface?  It sure as shit was not pavement.  More like a crumbly sort of loose black silty stuff.  It wasn’t really hard and it wasn’t really soft which made it feel like riding on a dirt road but with a little more traction.  That first hill was steep and I could tell right away that not all of us were going to be happy three hours from now.  

You can tell you are getting close to the hard part of the ride when you get to Mann Road and start to make your way through Mooresville.  Mooresville and the surrounding area is made of hills.  There is no flat.  You either are climbing or descending and usually you are in some sort of danger, be it a savagely eroded road surface or one of the many wild and irritable feral dogs that roam around Morgan County.  Luckily we were un-molested this day and were free to enjoy the suffering of Robb Hill Road and the run-in to Wilbur with not much trouble.  Oh yeah, wait, Robb Hill Road…and I only had the 23 tooth and so I had to stomp up those hills and it reminded me of when I used to ride there when I was younger and not eligible for masters racing and I did what was called “training” because I wanted to be a good bike racer.  

Now by this time I could tell that Jim and Bob were somewhat irritated with the pace up the hills and were huffing and puffing a little bit.  Betsy was a champ and was climbing well and so was Bri.  I was content to just go as fast as the 23 would allow me to but Bri insisted on going a little faster so I had to keep jumping back up and by the time we got to the little corner store in Wilbur I was feeling pretty beat up.  

So we get to the store and we all get our little snacky cakes and energy drinks and I think someone even bought a slim-jim which is very gross but to each his own and we sat in the sun and rested for a few minutes.  Then I glanced to my right and saw Thomas Revard and Seth Worthington and company. They were probably on their hundredth mile or so and just getting started, and I knew right then and there that I was old.  Pro cyclists…..

Aaaaaaand so we started back to our destination which was home and food and comfortable seating and my legs just felt marvelous, for real!  I actually felt like I might be able to do bike racing if need be.  And that made me want to go fast.  And so I did.  And so did Bri.  And then we found ourselves alone without our compatriots and where the hell did they go?  Turns out they took a short-cut because they are outright ninnies and didn’t want to climb up one more hill for fear of terminal hammy cramps or something.  But, we eventually found them and started back toward the South Side and the border of the city and the safety of flat roads and the ride started to feel like it was settling down and we were all good.  But then I heard something strange.  It was a sound like some sort of a very old machine with a lot of pulleys and wheels and cranks and metal all creaking and groaning and shuddering and demanding that we Slow Down!  And What?  Was someone shouting something?  I turned my head around and realized that it was in fact Bob Brooks and not an old decrepit machine that was following us with a bunch of rusty old bits and pieces wanting to give us tetanus.  

Bob was clearly cooked and the look on his face was obviously one of dread because his eyes had actually sunken to the back of his skull and all he could see was a long dark tunnel with a little piece of pizza hanging from a string at the end of it.  He was long gone into that place where all bonked cyclists eventually end up…it doesn’t really have a name but that doesn’t matter because it definitely has a personality and there are rules in there:  no talking, no help, no smiling or laughing and SLOW THE F__K DOWN!!  But keep pedaling!  Do not stop pedaling and what is the quickest route to my refrigerator and food.  That is where we left Bob and I believe he made it home but I’m not entirely sure.  I offered him a gel but he just flailed his hand at me and made a sort of choking sound like a dying bullfrog and rode on.  And so it went until we made it to the Monon Trail and the safely of fine asphalt and hundreds of people with dogs on long leashes.  I left the group at 136th street and the famous eight-circle roundabout that goes under 31 that as far as I can tell no one in their right mind knows how to navigate.  I just sort of count to three and go as fast as I can in as straight a line as possible from one end to the other and hope that no Carmel soccer mom in a huge black SUV doesn’t blast me to smitherines.  

I’m getting tired and I know that last paragraph had very poor grammar but I just don’t care.  It was a great ride and I think I will do it again this Wednesday with Andrz-too many consonants in a row in his name and whoever else wants to ride with us.  Maybe Felipe or Kevin Noone.  If anyone want to find me in the next few days I will be at Gray Goat Bicycle Company trying to convince the world that tubular tires are still the shit and I am the best at sticking them to your rims.  

Your pal,

Twisted Richter