Rawness setting in
and for a closer look-click make big
On my homeward bound Stay Alive yesterday afternoon the weirdest thing happened a few hundred yards from the house in Dooleyville. I stood up to get some speed entering the last descent when all of a sudden my back tire blew out and it felt like the rear wheel broke traction and slid to the left sending the bike out from under me. The next thing I realized was that my riderless Lemond was heading straight for under the front right tire of the car viper that was passing on my left at the same second I was airborne arms in front of me and body parallel to the black deck. My eyes were on the little gray fixy and just before it was about to go under the car the driver instinctively swerved left to miss the ghost ridden bike and he did by a foot. All of a sudden I was happy that my work bike did not meet it's end then I slammed hard in to the asphalt which made me unhappy all over again. It was an abrupt stop to a hard fall that caused the wind to be knocked out of me. The driver stopped, I rolled around for a minute and alleviated him of any responsibility he had thought he had. As I limped away for a jog/walk to the house I heard him say that once he had been hit while riding a bike just like mine. "Thanks", I replied over my shoulder while thinking there was no way it was just like mine. When I got home I tended to the 4 Beagle Puppies under our care and fixed the flat so my work bike would be ready for the morrow. Within in no time I was on the way to Sherman Branch to meet Scott alls balls Allsbury aka simply Ballsberry for an evening ride. He lives so close all he has to do is jump on his bike and roll down his street to a little spur trail that leads right in to the Branch. I looked at the gas gauge on the Montero and thought to myself that I had not added any gas in this car in at least three weeks and had been running on under the E mark hoping that my tank was actually bottomless. Can I make it there and back again? This time I was not risking it so I put in 20 In God We Trust Units at the local Petro Station which equalled 5.001 US Gallons. When I jumped back in the needle registered just over an 8th of a tank. Is that not the funniest shit I have ever heard? I can prolly make it there and back on that much fuel for the next month or so, life is good!
At Sherman Ballsberry rolled up and after some new parts chat we took off. I had not seen this ole pal in awhile and it was good to get caught up with him even though there were some serious things brought to the table. I have known Scott since the rainy Renaissance Race in the Spring of 1998 when he, Dicky and I were all on the same starting line but none of us had yet met. The course was soaking wet and the promoter asked the field right before the start about voting on whether or not the distance should be shortened. Scott and I voted yes, serious riders grumbled, then the hands including Dicky's skinny one went up for not shortening and the less serious grumbled. How could I forget what either of their faces looked like over ten years ago against the gray toned sky? At any rate last night I heard Scott laughing a bunch as we flew through the hard packed trail. I took some different video shots of him riding the long log ride and maybe in a day or two I will post some video work here.
2 comments:
It's amazing how much you thought about before you slammed into the ground. I wonder if the adrenaline that causes us to feel like we are in a Matrix super-slow motion also causes us to think faster... or just makes us more cognitive of our own thoughts?
Jimmy...
Time is always slowing down for me when at the same time speeding up, especially when the experience is involving my own physical sensory participation. I could not help but identify what was happening to me and my bicycle in those few airborn seconds becaause it was as available for my visual cortex to receive and there for was as tangible as if it were taking an hour. Ride on~
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