#31: The Dog's Bollocks

13 August 2012

Last week, as I kept myself stuffed into the unruly peloton headed for Walnford, breathing 98 percent humidity, sticky with sweat, doing my best to ignore the wall I'd just hit, I found myself at a loss to explain why I do hundred-mile rides.

All week long I thought about it.

Because if sixty miles is great, one hundred must be better.  Because I'm good at endurance.  Because the biker buddies I admired did it and I wanted to be like them.  Because I wanted to see what it was like.

Because of the post-century buzz that lasts two days.

I was in the book to lead a ride on Sunday.  Lambertville to Clinton?  Round Valley from Pennington?  Would people want to do hills again on Sunday after Cheryl's Saturday vertical lovefest?  It was Wednesday afternoon; I had a day, more or less, to make a decision.

That's when Dave C, the lead Boy in the Hood, sent around the Philly Bike Club's listing of a ride from Etra Park to Belmar, the same route that drenched Tom two weeks ago.  70-some-odd miles.

Well, hell, if you're gonna do seventy, you might as well do one hundred.  Dave, having missed the hundred mile mark the week before, was into that idea.  Shawn, who wasn't at the Event at all, was into it.  Jim, who worked the event and had a serious case of century jealousy, was into it.  Up on the blog it went.

Well, hell, if I'm gonna lead a ride that starts seven miles from home, I'm going to bike there.  I didn't say anything to they guys about that, but Jim is smart enough to know I'm dumb enough to tack an extra fourteen onto a century.  Was I biking over?  Um, yeah.  Did I want company?  Hell, yeah.

So I ate right and slept right and iced the coffee the night before.  I made a sandwich and placed four miniature bananas carefully into my pack.

I expected Jim to see them in the morning, lean in a little closer, and declare, "Oh, for heaven's sake!"  He didn't.  He was too busy showing up at my house before even the cats had their breakfast.

Poor Mojo.  The little guy couldn't figure out whether to hide or eat.  He ran back and forth from the kitchen to the stairs, keeping his eyes on the front door.  Food finally won, and I was able to eat my breakfast after he'd finished his.

We set off at 6:45 at a leisurely pace, talking the whole time.  At Mercer County Park we picked up four more people:  Dave C, Shawn, Rich, and Jack H.  I got us to Etra park in plenty of time and with 12.7 miles.

Linda M looked up as we pulled in.  "Oh, wow," she said.  "I've got six," I told her.  When we all left the park we were twenty-two.  As we rounded a corner a few miles in, she looked over at the long line behind her and said, "Oh, wow," again.

We kept an easy pace.  The air was dry and cool.  We had a little breeze.  The first food stop was in Farmingdale, at 27 or 40 or 47 miles, depending on how I wanted to track it.

Why is it that, even if you don't touch a perfect banana, it'll look like shit if it knows you're going to eat it later that day?

We got held up at a railroad crossing.  By the time I got my phone out, the two-car train had passed.  Anyway, though, that's more than half the group up there.

Linda took us to the coast via Sea Girt.  We rode north along the beach all the way to Belmar.  Dodging cars and pedestrians, our group got spread out.  I found myself next to Cliff.

Neither of us, it turns out, are beach people.  We talked about being on the beach as kids.

I was terrified of the waves the first time.

Once I got in the water, though, they couldn't get me out.

The current would pull me sideways.  I'd walk to shore, oblivious, and be terrified once again as I couldn't find my parents' umbrella anywhere.  This happened more than once.

There was the time we were stuck inside during a hurricane.

There was the time I was walking with my father on the street in Ventnor.  I think I was three.  He says I was older.  We stepped onto the boardwalk, a ramp from the street.  A few paces in, out of nowhere, I upchucked.  That's my memory of Ventnor:  barfing on the boardwalk.

That much I told Cliff.  The rest I'm just remembering:

Watching my parents watch in horror as Atlantic City turned into casinos.

Sand in everything.  Ice cream vendors on the beach.  Cigarette butts.  Sand in my popsicles.  Seaweed, clams.  The big kids with good bodies.  Me, a potato.

Talking my father into letting us buy an inflatable raft.  Getting heatstroke and collapsing on it as my sister and I were heading towards the water.

My mother being content to just sit on the blanket and read, turning herself a crispy brown.

Bleah.  You can have it.  I'd rather be on my bike.

After our rest stop at the usual spot, where today there were more sketchy people than usual, Linda took us up the road to the Shark River inlet.  I'd never been on that bridge.

Across the river was Bradley Beach (I think.  Ocean Grove?), far more crowded than Belmar.

The inlet:

Kermit helps me get artsy:

After the bridge we had miles of pace-killer starts and stops, turns and waits, as we dragged our crowd out of the city and back onto the open road.

We were just picking up speed when we passed an inlet.  I wanted a picture, but I was in the middle of the pack and there wasn't much of a shoulder.  To our right was a small beach, a dilapidated dock, pilings out in the water, and a dozen swans by the shore, mingling with other birds.

Since I didn't get a picture, I've drawn one instead:

Dave and I were talking about British slang.

"Do you know the word 'bollocks'?" he said.

"Of course!"

"That's my favorite word.  I love the word 'bollocks.' You can really get behind that word.  Bollocks!  You can go down a hill at thirty-five miles an hour and scream, 'Bollllllllooooooooocks!"

"Ha!"

"Bollocks is bad, of course," he went on, "but dog's bollocks is good.  You know why?"

It didn't take much imagination.  "Swingin' free," I answered.

"That's right.  Tail up, balls swinging.  The dog's bollocks."


We didn't get much further, just over the Parkway, when someone had a flat.  It was a good place to stop.  I texted a bit of the bollocks lesson to Jack and Dale so I wouldn't forget.  I wasn't the only one with my smartphone out, but others were taking advantage of the shade and the pine needles.  I found a corner out of sight.  I probably mooned the Parkway.

In Farmingdale again, the group split up.  Joe had to get back, and others just wanted to get moving.

I really should be stripped of my leader role after seventy miles:  I ended up calling out, "Hill Slugs, let's go" and pulling out before accounting for all of them.  Rich and Shawn had to sprint to catch up.  Jim did a great job of bridging the gap. 

We took a final rest stop in a strip-mall wasteland Dunkin' Donuts.  From here to Etra would only be another fifteen miles.  Halfway there, Dave began to slow down behind me.  I slowed to keep him in sight.  He caught up to me.  "Have you seen Shawn?" he asked. 

"He's not up front?"

"No.  And he's not behind us either."

He turned back, I stopped to pull out my sign-in sheet with Shawn's number, and Joe appeared from in front of me.  "I'm gonna call him," I said.  "You go on ahead."

Shawn picked up.  "Rich had a flat," he said.

"Where are you?"

"I don't know."

"Do you have  cue sheet?"

"No."

"Stay there.  We'll retrace our steps and come and get you."

With a tailwind, I headed back, catching up with Dave.  We heard Jim's bell behind us.  Good ol' sweep, back on duty.  In another half mile or so we found Shawn and Rich, ready to go.  So there we were, five of the six of the Mercer County Park Hill Slug contingent.  Jack, of course, had gone on ahead.  I knew we wouldn't see him again today.

We turned in to Etra Park just in case he'd be waiting, which he wasn't.  Shawn and Rich got water.  I ate the last of my food.  (I still had a few Shot Bloks left, but those don't count as food, not really.)

The rest of the ride was just pedal, pedal, pedal, into the headwind, against our bodies saying, "enough already!"  We parted ways near Mercer County Park, the Boys in the Hood getting their hundred in.  When Jim and I turned onto my street, we had 116 miles.

I've had that post-century buzz ever since.

Why do I do a century?  Because it's there.