Tom's New Bike Adrenaline

31 July 2010

By all rights I should let Tom write first; it's his arm, after all. But I don't much feel like doing anything productive right now, so here we are.

Blake led an off-the-book ride today out of Lambertville. He tweaked the first half from one of my Hill Slug routes and put the second half in Pennsylvania.

Since don't know more than one or two roads on the other side of the river, and because I trust Blake not to drop me even though he could with one leg tied behind his back, I was keen on the trip. Tom was, too, because he wanted to climb, and we were going to tackle an unknown: Bridgeton Hill Road. It looked daunting on paper, perfect for Tom and his new climbing machine.

We gathered in the parking lot around Blake's car, where I leaned Kermit. Tom was standing, holding his bike. Wordlessly, I put my hand on it and slowly pulled it away from him. He watched me climb onto it. My feet barely reached the pedals when I sat in the saddle, but I took it on a short, slow loop in the lot anyway. It felt as if there were nothing underneath me. I dismounted and handed it back. It seems that's as close to a test-ride as I'm going to get.

Before we started, Cheryl had this to say about Tom's new-found speed and quest for steepness: "It's new bike adrenaline. It'll go away eventually."

We had perfect biking weather: sunny, warm, dry air, and a cool breeze. We had a good group, too: Blake, Tom, Cheryl, Chris, and me. All PFW ride leaders, all familiar with enough of the roads that we'd be able to keep each other from getting hopelessly lost.

This is the kind of ride that the Hill Slugs used to have, before, well, I'm not sure. Before things changed.

Anyway, the first half was mild and familiar. We stopped at the Homestead General Store in Upper Black Eddy. I took some more pictures of the store's garden along the canal.

I tanked up on Homestead's iced coffee. Even the ice cubes are coffee. I dumped them into my water bottle.

Then we headed up Bridgeton Hill. The incline started with one of those sharp turns. You know the kind: a hairpin on a zillion-degree angle, the kind of thing that just laughs at you. But that was just about the worst of it. Tom dropped his chain there during an attempt to change gears in the front and back at the same time. Generally, that doesn't work.

There was another annoying part near the top, but at that point we could see what was coming. Blake was out ahead and Tom, floating on his Cannondale cloud, was close behind. Cheryl was up there somewhere too.

I did my usual turtling upwards at my own piddling pace. I've done worse 400-foot climbs. Kermit and I can do the job; we're just not fast about it.

After that was over we paralleled the Delaware River from the top of a ridge. Blake took us to the river and then we turned up again on Dark Hollow Road. If Kermit and I had been built for any kind of hill, it would be this one: it was many miles long but not steep, and just the right grade for me to pick a rhythm (James Brown's "Get On the Good Foot") and stick with it. We got pretty spread out.

Blake warned us that the next road contained a dangerous descent. I said, "Tom, you should go last. You don't know what your new bike will do." He reassured us that he knew how it would handle. As the road bent downhill at an intersection there was a "do not enter" sign. I hesitated as I watched Tom, Blake, and Chris disappear downhill. "It says --" I began, but Cheryl said, "It's OK. It's closed to cars."

I stayed behind her, grabbing the brakes every few seconds as we twisted and turned in the shade. Around a sharp right turn Cheryl stopped and I stopped behind her.

Tom was sitting in a pile of gravel, picking pieces of the road out of his skin. He stood up. "Hold this?" he asked me, and I took his bike. The top tube isn't round; it's triangular.

Blood ran down from his right elbow. Other than that he seemed all right. We looked at the gravel. There was an arm-shaped space skidding through it, and tire tracks off to the side. Tom had some alcohol swabs and a band-aid, but there was too much blood for the adhesive to stick. We were five miles away from the Carversville General Store, where he could clean himself off properly.

"Hold up your arm," Chris said. He had his camera ready. I pulled mine out too. Why not? Anything for the blog.

"Are you sure you're okay?" we kept asking.

"He's running on adrenaline now," I said.

We went on, calling out "Gravel, Tom!" every time we saw the least bit of it in the road.

When he came out of the bathroom in Carversville his arm looked much better. It was still ugly, and some of the cuts looked deep, but at least the cut was drying out. He had road rash on his thigh, too, under his shorts, which hadn't ripped at all. We decided to cut out the last few miles of rollers and head home the flat way, along the river. It would be faster.

When we hit Route 29 I put Kermit in the big ring and pulled the group home. Kermit and I were meant to ride the flats, where my weight and a heavy steel bike come in handy once we get moving.

On my drive home I stopped in at the bike shop. There are still no 2010 Synapse Carbon 5 frames to be had in my size, although Ross has been combing the Cannondale inventory weekly. So we put an order in for a 2011 Synapse instead. He took some measurements from Kermit and we worked out some details. Now I just wait for the new inventory to arrive and try to squirrel away a few extra dollars while I'm waiting.

*****

Tom just sent us an email to tell us that his arm looks a lot better than it did this afternoon. He sent a picture, too, but I'll leave that for him to blog about. It's his arm, after all.