Big Bikes

First Rule of Bike Club is...

you do not talk about Bike Club. People up at school thought I was weird enough, walking around in my black leotard with cuts and scars all up an down my arms and legs. Then I come into class with a shiner. When most people see someone with a black eye they ask, "did you get in a fight?" But when you look as physically imposing as I do, people look at you and ask, "did you get beat up?"

There's just something about a black eye that makes people really, really uncomfortable. They can't stop looking at it. And I'm a guy...when someone sees a black eye on a woman they get all freaked out. Back when M got hit by that drunk driver (I don't know if the guy was drunk, but I would assume someone would have to be drunk to a.) not notice they hit a woman on a bike, and b.) Flee the scene, leaving a semi-conscious woman lying in the street after he hit her with his car) back in November 2007, I was too shook up to joke about the awkward ER visit that ensued. But now I'm ready.

I had to bring my girlfriend into the ER with a massive black eye. I hope none of you ever have to do this, the looks you get from people are chilling, everyone thinks you are a monster. Then the nurses and doctors start the questioning, they make you leave the room so they can ask things like: "Do you feel fearful in your relationship? Do you feel safe in your home? Did someone push you off your bike?" Seriously on the last one, although it does sound like a joke.

As you can see below, her shiner was much, much worse than mine.


My thoughts as they asked M the questions were: Do you really think I could do that to her? I mean, not could I do it...psychologically, emotionally, but physically. What, did I come into the bedroom while she was sleeping and hit her in the face with a shovel? Did I have help? Like an army...of gorillas (with shovels). My wife and I met when she won a wrestling match with me (long, true story that I'm not sharing here. I'll have to start up a separate blog for things like that) there is no way I could better her in hand to hand combat.

My little Bear Jew is no Joke. If I was fool enough to mess with her,
I'd look a lot worse than this:

But I did get beat up in a way...by nature. It's like the whack jobs at Friends of The Fells say "Mountain bikes are not compatible with nature!" Nature must have taken a swipe back at me in revenge then. I was riding through Whipple Hill out in Arlington on a trail I had just been on two days prior. I came around a blind corner on some overgrown singletrack, slightly downhill, but not going too, too fast, and then WHAP! Bright lights, big pain. I was flat on my back, my bike was down the trail from me and everything was going jibbidy, jibbidy, jibbidy. I had no idea who or what hit me. Then I looked up and saw a downed tree lying across the trail at eye-level (for a biker).

But it could have been worse...

I had made contact with the branch just to the right of this mean little protrusion that could have taken my damn eye out. So I went house on the thing, like a mom with her kid trapped under a burning car adrenaline-strength style. I bent the branch back until it was ready to catapult me to Djibouti. It was creaking and protesting like crazy, and then CRACK! It let go all at once, sending me flying backwards with the still shuddering tree branch falling heavily at my feet.


What you lookin' at kid? All super-models have high (and disturbingly protruding) cheekbones.

But I'm used to getting stared at.

Especially when I forget to wipe off the mis-fired snot-rocket and the partial Hitler-dirt-stash.


And this? This the last photo the Canon Digital Elph took before its lens failed to retract for the last time. I was going to do a kind of "beverage cycle series" from the night before the Glocester Grind up to the night after. One photo does not a cycle series make. I'm thinking of going with a shock-proof, waterproof Olympus camera this time around. It's what Jill uses Up In Alaska, so it's gotta be good.

-t