Tom's Riding Journal

TOM Take - Sunday 3-13

When the explosion occurred I was about 50 yards ahead of The Thin Man who took the brunt of the blast. It blew his bike into three pieces neatly separating the frame at the head tube and the seat and chainstays. The blast knocked El Motor into a culvert separating his shoulder and cracking his helmet. The Loan Shark was blown into a barbed wire fence where he became hopelessly entangled. When I heard the boom I jumped out of my saddle and fell to the pavement unhurt but for a few scrapes. After I recovered from the shock of what happened I picked myself up and rode back to the other riders. I gaped at the horror of what I saw. The pavement was slick with blood and as my tires hit it, I went down and slid across the street covering my self in warm blood. As I picked myself up for the second time Lead Dog raced up shouting,” I got you guys now Ha! Ha!” Behind him The Aggie was drafting and they both blazed by us, victory smiles on their faces splashing blood up from their tires onto us as we struggled to cope with the carnage. “Man those guys are really competitive. I didn’t know this was a race”, said The Thin Man as he struggled to set the compound fracture of his tibia and apply a tourniquet to the blood-pumping artery. "Yeah man what’s up with those guys. They could wait up for us”, I replied as I pulled my multitool out of my seat bag and approached The Loan Shark.” I wonder if this thing has a wire cutter “, I said as I unfolded the tool. I left The Thin Man to his own devices while I freed the helpless Loan Shark. The two of us started gathering up the severed pieces of The Thin Man’s bike as El Motor started slamming his shoulder into a tree like a football player repeatedly hitting a tackling dummy in an attempt to reset his dislocated shoulder. We laid the broken bike in the street in its former orientation and began to brainstorm on how we were going to reconnect the broken frame tubes so we could get back on the road. We knew Vancas and Mrs.Vancas were back there somewhere in the sag Honda and The Fantastic Fredericksburg Duo was somewhere ahead of us in The Teacher’s hot rod Mazda but we didn’t want to call them because some of the slower riders might have needed water or moral support. El Motor walked over to where The Loan Shark and I were standing looking down at the bike. The Thin Man pushed himself up gingerly testing his broken leg that he had splinted using his torn jersey and frame pump. The Loan Shark looked like he had chicken pox because he was covered in tiny red puncture holes from the barbed wire. We all four stood in the street side-by-side looking like “the band of brothers” after a particularly heinous battle. We found out later that evening when we were watching the local news what had caused the explosion. There was a large meth lab in operation in a shack behind a trailer house we passed on the route. The outlaw chemist, waking up with a snout full of his own product, had mixed two precursor chemicals incorrectly and boom! Well, speed kills, as they say.

Meanwhile a small group of fast moving riders were working together motoring down FM 1375 in a tight pace-line. Among them was Judy, The Teacher, Rocket, Matt, Girl Ninja, Shari, Kelly, Tiffany, Leigh and Bumblebee. Matt was pulling for the first six miles, finally relinquishing the point to Girl Ninja who was still suffering from an intense acupuncture session that was successful in completely eliminating her craving for alcohol and cigarettes but unfortunately left her husband, Matt, jonesing for both. Just behind this group working efficiently in a well-disciplined fashion was another group which included: Monica, Mark K., Robert, Wayne, William, Greg and Dillon (who drove all the way from Orange to ride with their team) Kim and The Principle (who kept them all in line). Somewhere on the road was a lone soldier on a mountain bike quickly working his way up to the lead group. His name is Guillermo. Guillermo-a name that will one day be chanted along the roadsides of the French Alps along with the names Lance and Ulrich. That’s my prediction; first he’ll buy an Orbea from me and then on to greatness. At the back were four girls from Visible Changes who got a late start because they needed to touch up their hair and makeup at the last minute. They looked so good riding 42 miles that all along the route guys in trucks were driving off the road trying to keep the girl’s images in their review mirrors for as long as possible. Among the riders who took the short route (42 miles-if you can call that short) two tiny girls led the pack obviously benefiting from from the reduced aerodynamic drag afforded their diminutive physiques. They were, of course, The Little Eye Doctor (whose boyfriend rode with us for the first time) and Kidd aka. Dork aka.J-Enna aka.J-Rose who did her best to live up to each of her nicknames.

Back at the wreckage as “the band of brothers” was contemplating the repair of The Thin Man’s bike, Rocket pulls up and sets his lighting fast creative mind to work on the problem. The Aggie doubled back and joined us and together we formulated a plan that was part MacGyver and part Texas Aggie. The brush at the side of the road was still ablaze and a couple of fence posts had been burning long enough to be glowing white hot like charcoal. We shoved pieces of wood into the ends of the broken frame tubes like dowel pins and rejoined the tubing. Then we used some old tin cans we found, peeling them into small strips that we wrapped around the junction of the frame tubes. Finally we laid the frame on top of the coal-like burning fence posts. The combination of the low melting temperature of the tin and the wooden dowels which burned from inside the tubes produced the desired effect of brazing the tubing back together. I reached down and lifted the scorching frame from the fire branding the image of the Giant Bikes logo on the palm of my left hand from the bikes red hot head badge Then we all sprayed the frame with water from our bottles to cool it off, The Thin Man carefully mounted the bike. Someone reached down and clicked his shoe into the pedal on his broken leg side and off we rode. At mile 45 when we really got into the hills we motor paced off a group of Harley riders who were wearing the colors of The Pasadena Chapter of The Banditos. With our blood soaked clothing and faces set in looks of grim determination we had won their respect so they helped us reach incredible speeds until we finished the ride at 60 miles.

That’s pretty much how I remembered it.