Machine

      My cousin asks about the ride I just did in New York City.  I tell him it was great.  I take a sip of beer, “70 miles and I got to bike through the Lincoln Tunnel and over the George Washington Bridge.  The tunnel was the best part, all the yellow lights spaced 6 feet from one another.  Everyone was surrounded by a web of their own shadows, all we heard were the echoes of other cyclists screaming; I cawed like a crow.  I would’ve liked the bridge more if a razor blade hadn’t found its way into my rear wheel, but that’s New York for you.” 

Condensation slides down the bottle and drips off my fingers; I make patterns on the orange tiles poolside.  “There were a few professional riders there.”  He nods but looks a little distracted.  “I kept up with them for the first 30 miles, was even in front at one point.”  I don’t mention that it didn’t last.  The winds on the Westside Highway were crazy; I felt like I was going backwards.  With all the people passing me, it probably looked that way too.

My cousin, the state trooper, seems hesitant but curious.  “Let me ask you something.”  He looks around to see if anyone else can hear, as if I’m about to tell him something secret.  “Why are all these cyclists doping?” 

I laugh then shrug; the answer I don’t give him is that they take drugs for the same reason I stopped. 

It’s just after 10 p.m.  I come home from work angry, frustrated or disgusted; I heat a frozen pizza and smoke a bowl.  My friends are either out of town or occupied for the night.  I sit and think about the store and the customers; I wish I had a new job, but I’d settle for a punching bag.  My mind recycles the day’s stupid questions, stupid answers – the annoyances of a meaningless job.  I smoke another bowl then decide to go for a walk.

Outside, the air is cool and heavy and damp.  It recently stopped raining and I like the sheen of the wet roads under moonlight.  I look at my bike, chained and waiting to take me to work the next day.  I grimace in disgust and decide not to go for the walk; I decide to take the bike somewhere other than work.

I go up Hamilton Street and find myself out of breath at the top of the hill.  For some reason, instead of coasting down the other side I get out of the saddle, stand on my pedals and kick each leg down.  I push harder with each stroke, trying to build instead of maintain momentum.  At the corner of George Street I take a left and ride through the College Avenue campus: buildings I studied in, a spot where I used to sit and read; I ride past 4 different apartments and dorms I lived in and dozens that friends have moved out of.  I find the entrance to a walkway along the Route 18 Bridge and ride to Busch Campus, past classrooms I failed out of, more familiar dorms. 

I feel sweat, cool in a dark breeze – it clings to my hair, it slides along my jawbone and drips from my chin to my shirt.  I feel free, like a little kid riding to his friend’s house. 

The streetlights bounce off the road.  No cars in sight.  I ride through the nature preserve and a family of deer runs parallel to me, 20 feet off my side.  They pass a small trail I turn onto.  It leads down to some park I don’t know about.  It’s flooded from the rain, sunk under the muck of the Raritan.  I stop where the path slips into the water.  Across river, the lights of New Brunswick fill houses and flood the streets.  From a distance they seem less offensive, less like crack houses and roads full of balled up underwear, banana peals, and torn bits of paper.

I’m curious to find out what I can make my body do.  I’ve been riding daily; I don’t get tired from 12 miles so I decide to push up to thirty.  There is no way I would’ve thought about doing this a month ago.  

Early morning I take to the street with three liters of water on my back and an empty stomach.  I’ve never ridden this far, but I think food might cause me to cramp up.  88 degrees, 15 mph; I’m sweating, but not as much as I need to.  20 miles into the ride I run out of water; I stop to refill my CamelBak at a water fountain.  I start cramping up on my way back home and finish off the 30 coasting at five mph

I pull up in front of my apartment and climb off my bike.  My knees weak, but not quite buckling.  I wonder if I should’ve stopped at the 20 mile mark or at 25 when my legs went numb.  I lift the bike onto my shoulder and walk up the stairs to the door of my apartment building.  My arms are shaking.  The key is in my hand but I can’t get it into the lock.  I put the bike down, hold my right arm with my left and thread the key.  I struggle to turn the lock, but eventually pry the door open. 

With the bike back on my shoulder, I climb 3 flights of stairs.  In my apartment I throw some mac and cheese in the microwave and get into the shower with my clothes on.  I hang the wet clothes on the shower rod and towel off.  I can’t believe how hungry I am. 

A shaking finger pops open the microwave and I grab a fork.  One bite and I’m in the bathroom.  Four liters of water spill out my mouth.  At the time I think I just pushed my body too far too soon, that it’s overexertion, that my legs are being vindictive, my body pulled thin.  My stomach locks. 

I leave the bowl of food beside my bed and pass out for two hours.  Dehydration is dangerous; over hydrating is a different kind of terrible.  Water intoxication, (hyponatremia) looks like dehydration and comes with the confusion, nausea, and fatigue.  An excessive amount of water floods the body, dilutes a person’s salt content.  The blood contains fewer minerals; eventually muscles, the brain, the heart, everything weakens.  Some get sick, some shift into a coma, some die. 

After the 30 mile ride I wonder what was worse for me, the extra 18 miles or the four liters of water.  I assume it was the water, choosing stupidity over lack of ability; after all, I want to ride further, I don’t care if I drink that much again. 

 “You really could’ve fucked yourself like that.”  I’m at a party talking to a friend about what happened; he laughs at me.  The loud music, our conversation, the sweat packed bodies – it seems like we should be talking about liquor instead of water.  I ask him some questions about bikes, long rides and repair.  He doesn’t know anything either, “But someone was telling me about a bike library over near Commercial Avenue.” 

The Bike Library is more of a bicycle graveyard.  It’s raining the first time I see it.  Dozens of bike frames, random parts and several piles of tires and inner tubes.  Nobody is there so I try again the next week; my rear wheel is bent so it rubs against my break pads with every rotation; it’s making my rides a lot harder, at least my legs are getting built up. 

 “That’s not safe,” this is a kid named Ryan talking to me.  I’m immediately skeptical of anyone who shares my name.  He’s got a thin red beard that works down to the middle of his chest; he’s got a canteen hanging by his side and clipped to it is a set of camping utensils.  The knife and spork bang together as he diagnoses my bike. 

“You broke a few spokes.” He illustrates this by prying several of them away from the wheel.  He also points to a dent in the frame, “Hit by a car?”  I tell him I bought the bike used, I’m not sure.  I find out that aluminum is unsafe if there’s a breach in the integrity of the frame.  He tells me that it’ll probably be fine to ride for a while, but there’s no way to know when it’s going to split open.  I imagine riding downhill and hearing a snap, seeing the ground come closer and my face sliding down the street.  Helmets can only do so much. 

I spend the afternoon scavenging the piles for the right size wheel, a tube that will hold air, and a new tire since mine was ruined from a blowout.  Ryan shows me how to true a wheel and I spend the better part of an hour twisting the spokes of my new wheel with a wrench; finally the rim is straight, or straight enough.  I put a new tube and tire on the wheel; it takes another hour.  He helps me adjust my front and rear derailleur so my chain can shift gears smoothly on the new set of cogs. 

When I’m about to leave I ask if I’ve done everything properly.  Kevin shrugs, “If you put the tube on wrong it’ll blow in a block or two.”  Feeling uneasy I take the first few streets slowly.  Despite the fear of an exploding tire, I can’t help but smile.  I understand more about my bike; it’s less foreign and more a part of me. 

I start to read a book on bicycle repair and buy a spoke wrench and some other tools.  I wonder how far I could go by bike.  It’s going to be another month before I start to hear back from graduate schools.  I’ve made a short list of things I want to do or attempt and fail.  I think about cycling, what to attempt that sounds crazy, that I wouldn’t have dreamed of last week, or last month.  I think of On the Road and want it to be better, closer to the asphalt.  I convince myself that I can cross the country on my own if I ride every day for the next year.  I think of after school specials about bulimia and how the girls say they felt powerless in their lives, that they just wanted to control their bodies. 

On the phone, I’m telling a friend about the idea of riding to California.  He says, “I know a guy who’s doing that right now.”  Before I know anything about Bill Garrett, he’s already my hero.  “He’s been gone for less than a week.” And I’m told that he’s already gone from New Jersey, through Pennsylvania, up to New York and then come back through Pennsylvania.  Not only is he biking to the west coast, but he’s going out of his way to see friends and family.  Knowing that a person is already riding my impossible trip makes me want to go even more.  Bill sends daily emails from his tent; my friend forwards them all to me.  In one of the first messages I read, Bill says, “I got up during the night to go to the bathroom and was astounded by the sky.  Clear, dark, and spectacular.  The stars were so clear and bright.  The big dipper was right in front of me, almost on the horizon.  Back in NJ I’ve never seen it that low.”  Jealous, I start training constantly.

On a day off of work I get back from a long ride; I shower then eat and drink continually.  The Giants/Eagles game is on.  A player is down on the field; he tries to get up, but his right leg buckles.  They show the sidelines and the teammate who just ran back a punt is taking oxygen.  They fade to a commercial break and I flip around and find that the Tour De France is on. Nobody knows that this year’s winner will have his jersey taken away for doping.  Right now I’m wondering if someday all cyclists will ride wearing oxygen masks.  I take a bite of my sandwich, my ride dwarfed by the screen.  As I’m watching the cyclists, the injured player is taken off the football field.

Between plays, I watch the race.  At the final sprint, the riders shake their bikes from side to side to maximize the pressure of each pedal stroke.  For the final mile they push harder than the 120 that precede it.  Tomorrow they’ll do it again; tomorrow I’ll put 30 miles in after work.  This is less inspiring than crushing. 

Rather than watch the day’s highlights, I turn back to football, a sport I have no intentions of playing.  The Giants are on defense and one of the players has sacked the Eagles quarterback.  It’s the guy who was carted off the field earlier; the pain and inflammation had been too much, but with the help of a cortisone shot he came back to the game. 

I don’t get tired after biking anymore, but I vary my week with short and long rides.  The longer ones are around 30 miles.  I push myself, but remember to keep the rest of the ride in mind.  I make sure to pace my water intake.  My shorter rides are still between 10 and 15 miles.  They’re heart choking sprints with no breaks in a lungless body numbing motion.  The former is for endurance, the latter for speed.  I’ve gone from 12 miles to 30, from 10 mph to 15.  At first the speed and endurance grew rapidly, then I leveled off.  After a few weeks on this plateau I’m frustrated.  I start to rotate days off into my schedule.  Even with the rest, my legs don’t push my numbers any higher.  I wonder what I can do to push my body further. 

One day I get back from a sprint.  My lungs burn, my throat is raw, fingertips numb.  I make a quesadilla; I sit on my bed eating, drinking Kool-aid and smoking a bowl.  I think about my lungs, my distance rides, my speed.  I decide to start eating better.  More fruit, less of cookies, chips and ice cream.  More cooked meals, fewer boxes.  I email my friend from college and tell her I’m going to stop smoking pot so I can ride further faster. 

The next day I get home from work and open the drawer that contains my pot, pipes and lighters.  I remember my flat speed.  I close the drawer and grab my bike for a 12 miles sprint.  A few hours after I get back I forget, go to the drawer and end up back on my bike.  I have the following day off and end up in the park at least 6 different times.  A week later I’ve forgotten about the drawer but I keep up the pace.  Two weeks later I average a steady 17.  At the end of the month I’m over 18.

The numbers keep me going.  In fact, I’ve been writing 4000 on my left hand with a marker, rewriting it a few times a week when the ink fades.  4000 is roughly the number of miles I’ll need to ride to get to California.  4000 is what I look at when I’m daydreaming at work or on my rides. 

20 miles into the day I think, “This is half a percent of my way across the country.”  I find this more motivating than discouraging.  I’ve saved my right hand for hills.  No numbers, but I have an arrow drawn on it.  The arrow aims straight ahead, always aligned with my body the same way regardless of whether I’m going up hills, down them or coasting on flats.  I follow the arrow and ignore elevation; it’s all just in front of me, waiting to be pushed into the past. 

With my new passion for ignoring hills I decide to visit my parents’ place for the weekend.  There’s a highway near their house that is cycling friendly.  9W runs right to the George Washington Bridge.  There are no flats; at the top of every hill you see the top of another one in front of you; every turn leads to a steady drop or a sharp climb.  More impressive than the hills are the bikes.  A friend from New Brunswick tells me, “Hot shot Wall Street bankers ride there.” 

I pass a group of Sunday cyclists, some bike club’s weekend ride.  Three people have the same $1600 Specialized, one guy has a $3000 Cannondale.  My CamelBak is leaking water or I actually drool when I see a black on black Trek listed at $6000.  My bike has at least 16 years on all of them.  Raleigh Technium 440; unfortunately age doesn’t mean experience.  My rusty chain alerts them of my presence and I pass them, eyeing their bikes as we climb a hill.

Another rise, another turn.  The riders behind me are gone, but there are two others ahead of me.  A turn later I’m close enough to read their cross bars.  A Trek 1000 and, “Holy shit, that’s a nice bike.”  He smiles back at me, “Thanks.”  It’s a vintage Pinarello aluminum frame, sexy yellow paint job and at least $2000 of high end components.  He even took out the aluminum fork and replaced it with carbon fiber.  The handlebars have carbon SRAM gear shifters infinitely more expensive than my whole bike. 

I pass the pair and a few more cyclists before I hit the 20 mile mark.  I look at my hand and think, if I could do that 199 more times, I’d be across the country. 

I turn around and make my way back home.  I’m amazed at how many hills I still have to climb.  It felt like the ride out had been all uphill, but unless the topography changed things were split pretty evenly.  I follow my arrow through another hill and think of Bill out west, going up a mountain pass.

I get home from work; 9:45.  Still 15 minutes till my sister is on the phone with her boyfriend.  I call her and she tells me that she’s worrying about our parents’ health.  I check to see if any schools have posted a decision yet, one has.  She asks if I got in, but the page is still loading. 

“Well?”  I’m silent long enough for her to know. When I finally speak, I just tell her I have to go.  I know one place I won’t be next year. 

I change, attach some lights to my wheels and carry the bike down the stairs.  I ride to the park.  It’s too dark to use the paths so I just circle around the perimeter, front wheel spinning red, rear wheel spinning blue.  I wait for my legs to burn, my lungs to claw at my chest.  I find silence.  I can’t see my hand, but I know the number is there.  Bill’s latest email came right before he went to sleep, “The tent is set up.  I’m overlooking tree-covered ridges and have birds singing around me.  I will sleep well tonight.” 

I take a long breath in through my nose, hold it two seconds, out through my mouth, wait two seconds and repeat.  The pauses, the pattern, they slow down my heart; I speak and my body listens. 

It’s dark even on the roads around the park.  I’m blind to my cyclometer, but can feel the pace in my chest slow as the wind comes faster.  I pretend to hear the birds outside my tent.    

My body tells me that I’ve improved as a cyclist.  My thighs are thicker and more toned each month; I breathe easily even though my rides are longer and my speed is faster.  But faster than what?  Further than what?  I don’t know if my improvement has moved me from bad to good, bad to okay, or bad to less bad.  When I see a flyer for an organized ride in Lambertville, I send in my registration.  It’s 40 miles of “rolling hills” and it starts and ends at a brewery.  Lambertville is only 33 miles from New Brunswick; I went there and rode home on a day off a few weeks earlier.  I get excited because for the first time I won’t be riding in a vacuum, I’ll have other riders to help gauge my abilities.

Check in at seven; the ride starts at eight; everyone clips into their pedals and we begin. I’m in the middle of the group looking at 60 sets of bike shorts; this in itself is motivation to move up. 

I work my way towards the front of the pack by the end of the second mile.  Six riders with matching jerseys are directly in front of me, drafting off of one another.  At the fifth mile they shuffle positions.  I keep my distance; I say that drafting is a cop out.  You can go the same speed with nearly half the energy.  Of course, I’d probably do it if I weren’t afraid of crashing into someone when they stop short. 

At mile 10 we round a corner, “No fucking way,” I’m looking up the steepest climb I’ve ever faced.  Already defeated, I shift into the second lowest gear leaving myself one last resort that isn’t walking my bike up the hill.  The peloton ahead of me shatters; they’re all out of their saddles, pushing their bodies, piston legs and heaving chests; slowly, we grind our way up the hill.  At the half way point the grade gets steeper, I pass everyone, not going faster, just less slowly. 

“On your left.”  I go to look over my shoulder, but before I get my head around- red spandex flies past me at a speed my body can’t fathom.

Purple face, shaking hands, pounding chest; frustrated, I get to the top of the hill in time to see the red jersey disappear around a corner about half a mile down the country road.  I shame myself.  This is a hill; I’ll need to climb mountains when I go cross country.  Bill just crossed the Cascades, three passes in one day.  I gear up, rise out of my seat and give my pedals three hard strokes before coasting for a tenth of a mile. 

Disappointed in my early fatigue, I reach for my water bottle.  My legs and lungs savor the rest and resume their cadence when my odometer clicks .1. 

The next 5 miles I’m alone aside from the cows I pass.  Nobody in front, nobody behind.  It’s not until I’m in the midst of some of those rolling hills that I hear, “to your left”. 

All black outfit, shining Cannondale, Oakleys and a friendly smile.  “Are you in front?”  I tell him that there’s one more person ahead of us.  “What’s your name?”  He’s Paul.  This rider, obscured by glasses and a helmet; in my mind, he looks like my old boss, same name so they share a face.  This is my first high speed conversation.

We turn onto a small country highway.  He asks why I’m riding and laughs when I say, “for the crotch numbing fun of it”.  His longest ride was a metric century and his favorite stat is top speed; he hit 53 on a nearby highway.  I’ve only gotten up to 37.  He checks his left shoulder, “Car back.” He drops behind me until a Civic passes us.  Paul pulls back beside me, “37?  There’s a hill coming up in a little while, you should be able to get 40.”  I hit 43; the hill did most of the work.  I felt better going 6 on that first climb.

I want to ask Paul about the other hills when he says “Big car back.”  I look over my shoulder and see an 18 wheeler.  Paul goes in front of me.  As the truck is beside us he points his right hand to the ground and shakes it so I know that loose gravel is coming up.  Just after the truck passes us I stare at the trailer and all I can think of is currents of air, we could probably get into the 30s drafting behind it.  Instead I squeeze my breaks until the gravel is behind me, then I shift into a higher gear to catch up with Paul.  I look over my shoulder; no cars coming up so I pull beside him.  He asks when I last saw the rider in front.  I check my odometer and I’ve been lagging for ten miles.  What makes my body incapable of doing what the red cyclist did?

Paul takes his hands off the handlebars and reaches into the back pocket of his jersey.  I see him take out an energy shot, a mixture of caffeine, protein and herbs that looks like thick fruit punch.  He downs it and puts the packet back into the pocket.  

Everything is hidden but his mouth, he’s grinning when he asks if I feel like catching the guy.  We don’t talk for the next five miles to save our oxygen for the ride. 

We lean into a turn; on the other side we see the jersey at the same time.  There’s a long hill in front of us, not as steep as the first, but roughly the same vertical gain.  Paul is a faster climber than I am, but I refuse to give in to my legs.  I keep my bike in the highest gear I can manage and follow Paul to the top.  A mile down the road we take a left and pull beside the man in red, Mike. 

“How the hell did you take that first hill so fast?”  He lives in the area, “I can’t leave my driveway without climbing a hill.”  I think of my rides in New Brunswick, long and flat.  I might be jealous. 

At the next rest stop, Paul and Mike refill their bottles.  I still have a liter so I keep going, “I’ll see you guys in a few miles.”  I figure they’ll probably chase me down sooner than that, but they never do.  I ride the last 15 miles with phantoms right behind me.  My cyclometer keeps telling me to go faster.  I follow the arrow on my right hand but every hill slows down my speed on the flats: this is unacceptable.  I think about cycling cross country, I think about breathing, I look at the 4000, ignore my legs and the number on my handlebar approves.

When I finish the ride, there’s a celebratory picnic and I’m told to help myself.  “You’re the first one back; how do you feel?”  I’m happy I don’t have to wait in line for food. 

Midway through my second plate of grilled chicken, Paul and Mike sit next to me.  “We got lost, ended up riding an extra 5 miles.”  And I’d been thinking my endurance overcame speed.  We eat and talk about the ride; we watch the line grow longer.  This wasn’t a race, but neither is chasing down a car or a person riding in the distance.  I’ve never known a cyclist to be content behind someone else. 

I point to the line and say, “That guy is my idol.”  Sideburns so grizzly they can only be called muttonchops, cigarette in hand, oil-stained t-shirt underneath a leather vest and jean shorts so jagged I’m not sure if they were cut or worn until the bottom half fell off.  Paul tells me, “I saw him smoking on the ride.” 

I wonder how he made it up the first hill.  For the most part, everyone here is in skintight spandex; they cut down drag, but I think that near-naked shame factors in to the increase of speed.  No one can see your face if you go fast enough.

I wonder if Muttonchops cares that he could’ve gone faster with the absurd attire, without the cigarettes.  I saw some people riding mountain bikes and wonder if they tell themselves, “I’d be in the front if I had thin, no tread tires, if I had rams-head handlebars, if my fork were carbon fiber.”  If someone on $4000 carbon bike passes me, I can’t help but to ask myself if it’s the rider or his bike that’s faster.

Half my transition from 10 mph to 20 mph and 10 miles to 50 was eating better, riding several times a day and giving my resin coated lungs a well earned break from smoke.  The other half was equipment. 

Riding a bike in flip-flops has liberating feel – hovering over the ground practically barefoot, surrounded by the wind, images rushing to be blurred in peripherals.  When I bought cycling cleats, there was a strange transition.  The shoes have a metal plate at the bottom that locks into the pedal.  Aside from providing the opportunity to break one’s ankle in a bike crash, they give you the ability to pull up on the pedals in addition to pushing down. 

After I bought the shoes I went home and changed the pedals on my bike and went for my daily ride.  My liberated feet were now locked down; very physically, I had become a moving piece of the bike; every pedal stroke made me think of the churning pistons powering an engine.  My average mph was 1.2 faster than normal. 

A fear of the inevitable collapse of my aluminum frame got me thinking about buying a new bike, when I realized that if I rode cross country I needed a touring bike to carry my gear, I made the purchase.  It looks like a racing bike, but it’s built with heavier metal so it’s more for reliability than speed.  Steel over carbon fiber and aluminum; but the 20 years of technology that separate my old and new road bike more than compensate for the additional eight pounds. Gear shifters that are built into the break levers and a more efficient drive train give me an extra two mph on my rides.  

Then there’s the spandex.  The wind is worse than hills are, less tangible, less visible, less predictable.  No evidence of what you struggled against.  When I’ve worn loose t-shirts and baggy shorts they fill with the rushing air.  I become more of a wheel-bound sailboat and less of a blade slipping through the wind.  The cycling clothes help with the wind, but place any pit stops or errands out of the realm of public decency. 

By far the most important piece of equipment I own is my cyclometer.  A magnet on the wheel, a sensor, and a computer the size of a wrist watch that straps onto my handlebars.  I don’t know how fast I went before I owned this little device, but the day I bought it was the same day I started taking cycling seriously.  The numbers push me when nobody is riding in the park.  They tell me I’ve gone faster before; they say I should be going that speed now.  Most of my riding is a struggle to go further, to go faster, but I’m left to wonder, how much of my success is because of my body, and how much is because of my gear. 

I want to ask Mike if he had to buy a new bike to ride the local hills or if he already had one.  I think of Muttonchops and wonder what he’d do on my bike.  The sky is getting cloudy so I say goodbye to my new friends; they ask why I’m putting my helmet back on.  I don’t own a car. 

I find the phone pole I left my bike lock on.  The 10 pounds of steel chain links get draped over my shoulder and I start my post-ride ride back to the house I stayed at last night. 

I’m more confident that I could make it to the west coast if I keep pushing myself.  I get distracted imagining the scenery Bill describes, “lots of farm country — fields of corn and soybeans.  Saw one field of small sunflowers.”  I wonder if I’ll be paying attention to the fields or if my body will be too tired, my mind too set on the road ahead of me. 

From the side of the highway I see a familiar bike on a car roof.  With the down grade, I’m going 27 mph, but the car is doubling my speed, I feel sluggish.  I wonder how much I’d slow down if I had a car and didn’t ride several times a day.  Traveling 30 miles to see friends, getting groceries, going to work, my everyday life is conditioning.  To get food to eat I need to practice. 

I’m on French Street and the right half of the road is bordered by parked cars; I take the lane.  It’s narrow so I’m centered between the yellow line and the row of cars.  The last thing I want is a door to swing open and clothesline me. 

A horn blares.  Over my shoulder I see a mini-van; inside, the driver is thrashing his arms around.  I pass a sign, speed limit 25, I’m at 23.  Screw him.  The horn comes again.  He must’ve rolled down his window, “…off the road.” 

A few blocks away, the metered parking stops, there are no cars.  I wait until this area to ride closer to the curb; the mini-van rides his horn the whole way.  As soon as I’m leaning to the right I hear his engine rev; I barely have time to get out of the way before he’s beside me.  Inside the van, he’s fidgeting with some buttons on his door and the passenger window comes down.  With the wind in my face I hear, “Hey Lance Armstrong, get the fuck off the road.”  I could tell this man that roads were first paved for bicyclists but I don’t think he’d care.  He’s streaming profanity, occasionally interjecting sentence fragments, “…hit you with my car.” 

I’m still riding beside the van when I ask the driver of this two-ton weapon, “Have you ever gotten your ass kicked by a man in spandex?”  He looks blank, curses a little more and speeds ahead to a red light.  I pull beside him with a smile that says fuck you. 

I watch the light for the side street: it turns yellow, no cars coming; I take off a few seconds before he gets the green.  The slope of the road gets steeper; I gear up and kick my pedals past 30, till I can’t keep up with the hill. 

I pull up in front of my apartment; my legs and hands are shaking.  My body, stoked with adrenaline.  I barely think about going inside to sit down.  With my cyclometer reset, I ride to the park and put in another 20 miles.  My legs don’t tire, my lungs don’t ache.  When I return, I write down my average mph and it’s 1.5 over normal.  I laugh when I read Bill’s message, “Roads are not busy.  Most everybody waves as they pass.  Farmers out working always wave.” 

I see the same faces on my rides.  Some stick to mornings, others come after work, but most people ride on Sundays.  I pick out distant objects, the cyclists.  I check the minutes and seconds on my cyclometer and pick a time to pass the person by.  I never know how long the person has been here, what mile they’re on.  It’s not a race with the person, just a question as to whether or not I can pass an object. 

One day I’m riding back through the park after a campus loop.  I decide to get ten more miles out of the park.  I see a member of the Rutgers cycling team in the parking lot.  His bike is flipped over and he’s changing a tire.  When I double back for the last three miles I can see him pulling onto the road.  He’s a few hundred feet away when I decide to chase him down.  I pace myself at first, creeping up slowly.  When I’m 20 feet back I check my speedometer, 18 flickering up to 18.5.  I’ve been riding a little over 90 minutes.  I have another mile of road left in the park.  I gear up and push myself up to 19; I’m grinding my teeth as I pass him.  I push harder but hover at 19.  With the corner of my eye I check my shoulder and I don’t see the kid.  I ease back down to 18.  He swerves to my left and blows past.  I don’t bother chasing, my legs are shot.  I turn onto the street and speed past the cars at red lights. 

I check my email and read the final forwarded message from Bill, “I have reached the Pacific Ocean.  I wish I could say I had profound thoughts at the time, that I could write something that will be remembered, but I can’t.  It just happened.”  Rereading the message, I peel a clementine and eat the sections one at a time.  Daydreams come of long empty roads cutting through cornfields and rain coming down mountain passes. I wonder if I’ll think of anything when my feet touch the Pacific and I feel the salty breeze, when I hear birds calling one another as they scatter across the setting sun.