20 Sep 2011

Bacharach to Frankfurt (98 km)

It was 2003 and Lance Armstrong was riding across a hayfield on his racing bike after narrowly missing the fallen Beloki.  Demonstrating his expert bike handling skills, he crossed the hayfield, jumped over an irrigation ditch, and rejoined the race, on his way to his fifth Tour de France victory.  Ok, so maybe I’m not quite so famous nor fit, but I did manage to pull off a darn good impression of The Texan on our ride toward Frankfurt today.

It all began with a pair of overheated forearms, namely mine.  I needed to get those arm-warmers off and since I’d successfully done so previously without stopping my bike, I figured my past success would be a good predictor of future success.  This turned out not to be the case.  Pulling the left one off ever so carefully, it was time to tackle the right.  This is when the doubt took hold.  Hmmm, I thought to myself, this seems harder than last time and I’d sure hate to crash because all I need to do today is to safely ride these last few kilometers but if I stop now Gina will leave me behind and I don’t want to expend the energy to catch up and gosh, that arm-warmer is certainly sticking hard to my glove and crumbs, there goes my front wheel cocking hard to the right and oh #%*@ now I’m heading off the path and holy smokes I better gain some control here or that’s gonna hurt and ALL STOP.

Somehow I didn’t crash, somehow I rode right into that field just like Lance, controlled and yet not but still upright.  Take a bow, Dena, and whisper a quiet Thank You to the Universe for making this a grassy field rather than a parked car.  Well, now that I’m stopped, at least I can get that darn arm-warmer off.