I kept thinking about riding my bike into
town when I was 15 years old. “Do you really think you can ride 50 miles a
day?” My father would ask. I would nod my head and reply with a confident
“yes”, even though I truly had no idea whether or not it was possible. This was
one month before my first bicycle trip- a 1,000-mile ride around Lake Michigan.
Now, 6 years later, I laughed at that bike ride.
I had passed the 3,000 mile mark of the
TransAm Bike Race and my mental clarity had began to decrease. It was around
3pm, and I was somewhere in the Ozarks trying to think of anything to improve
my mood. I had close to 100 miles logged for that day, but the sleep
deprivation and events earlier had started to take their course. Running low on
water, I wheeled into a church hoping to find some source of hydration. After
walking around the perimeter and realizing that there was nothing available, I
broke down. Back against the wall, the tears began flowing and I felt
completely defeated. A few days ago I had caught up to the legendary Scott
McConnell, but when we hit the road earlier that morning, something on the bike
felt wrong.
“You have to be f*cking kidding me”, I
shouted. Scott stopped and whipped around, checking to make sure I was okay.
“Damn thing won’t shift”. I told him to
go on, that I was sure I’d be able to figure it out and catch up to him later.
He left, and I pulled back to the picnic table I had slept on the night before.
I went over the shifter and slid my hands along the cable, realizing that it
was moving freely through the guides. The cable had snapped, and there wasn’t a
bike shop for the next 250 miles. The only thing I could do was keep my cool
and revisit the same words that had been running through my head since the
beginning- “just keep moving forward”. Scott had been on a single speed for the
last 3,000 miles, so I’d surely be able to make it the next 250. By noon, my
legs were burning. My calves were starting to cramp up, and I was losing hope
at a rapid pace.
Jesse Carlson said it best, “There’s no
coincidence that Missouri and the word ‘misery’ are so closely related”. I
hadn’t given much attention to the lack of shoulder. I didn’t let the more
frequent explicit hand gestures and the lack of general kindness that was going
on get to me. But when a couple of people decided it would make for a good
laugh to throw a full can of beer out the window of their oncoming car at my
bike, I became fed up. I screamed back at them, but it did nothing to ease my
anger. I threw my bike into the ditch at the side of the road and buried my
face in my lap, giving my vocal chords the exercise of a lifetime.
Every racer seemed to have bad luck in
Missouri, and this was apparent when I caught up to Eelco and Gavaskar just
after lunchtime. I thought it was bad to have a can of beer chucked out the
window. What was really bad was
having fireworks shot at you…twice. We rode within eyesight of each other for a
good portion of the afternoon, but by evening they had opened a sizeable gap.
I rolled into the town of Eminence around
10pm, and found Scott and Gavaskar outside of a gas station. They greeted me
with smiles and conversation, but food was the only thing on my mind. I walked into the station, but as luck
would have it, they turned me away as soon as I entered- they already closed
the register. I walked out, trying my best not to break down. Scott offered a
snickers bar, but I turned it away, trying to hide how disappointed I was. I remembered that earlier that day, Eelco had offered to split a motel
room. I, too proud of the fact that I had slept indoor only once in the last
two weeks had declined. Now, I had wished I hadn’t. Gavaskar pointed me in the
direction of the motel that Eelco had gone to, and left me to go search for a
place to crash for the night while he and Scott cycled on through the night.
When I reached the motel, I asked if another cyclist had shown up. After an
affirmative answer, I knocked on the door and sure enough, Eelco was there to
welcome me in. I consumed what food I had left- two pop tarts, a bag of
Gardetto’s and some warm Gatorade.
It truly is amazing how much good
conversation can turn your mood around. We chatted about our “normal lives” and
promptly fell asleep, ready to wake up five hours later to ride our bikes all
day, once again.
