Bike Dude Bro

On Our West Coast Bike Trip

We live on a scenic road that is frequented by many walkers, runners and cyclists. It's a narrow lane that is also used by vehicles taking a shortcut to the nearby casino. Our end of the street has the least amount of houses and no street lights so it gets more than it's fair share of disgarded trash. Before I ride my daily loop on my bicycle, I take a few minutes to pick up all the garbage in front of our house. The beer cans are always low end brews like Budweiser and Miller, never Guinness or even Sam Adams for that matter. After finding my eighth "Champaign of Beers," I figured it would be best to bring my truck down later and throw the growing pile of trash into the back. A cyclist rolled to a stop.

"Robert?" he said, "Derek. We used to work together."

"Oh hey," I answered hesitatingly.

Derek and I worked on a software team for a small company although he didn't actually write any software. He was on the crack "User Interface Team," which consisted of a bunch of people with useless college degrees that didn't involve any math expressing their opinions as to what our software should look like. Some of Derek's swaths of brilliance he espoused for our applications included a round start up splash screen, music and sound effects and my favorite, a small panel containing the Dilbert comic strip as something "whimsical." Apart from the fact that our company could never afford the license required to display a syndicated comic strip in an application accessible to a multitude of users, there was always the possibility that Dilbert might offend one of our customers like in the strip when it was implied that Dilbert had sex with his coworker because his tie was drawn flaccid.

Derek is a dope jock who has a degree in music with an emphasis on the tuba. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in the sousaphone. He got a job with the company because he played handball with the Chief Technology Officer. I'm not worried that Derek will read this because I don't think he can actually read.

"I didn't know you cycled," Derek exclaimed.

I biked a lot over the years. My wife, Christine, and I rode a tandem for 1300 miles of the West Coast, camping along the way. I used to go out and push for my personal best, but my days of "hammering" are behind me. The phase of life I am in now is more like a slow slide into a pine box. Biking for me has become a solitary time of the day when I can listen to some tunes and chill out while I get a little cardio in. I don't have a cycle computer that records my stats. I go out for as long or as short as I want, often pedaling the same loop by the Mystic River.

I surmised that biking with Derek would be slightly less appealing than a colonoscopy followed by a root canal. I never liked working with Derek. He was an arrogant, unskilled, dickhead who often interjected nonsensical requirements into the project like button placement or color choices. Whatever sport Derek played at the time became the topic of conversation during meetings. In his handball days Derek would blather about all the latest must have handball equipment. He would often talk about making the Olympic team. Derek always just missed qualification although I think he exaggerated his efforts to fulfill his dreams of glory.

"I just finished my first four hour century," Derek exclaimed.

A hundred miles on a bike sustaining 25 mph for four hours would certainly put you in contention with the top riders in the Tour of France. The best I ever did was 5 hours and 10 minutes. I think I was in my twenties. Something told me that Derek's days of thunder were behind him. One thing was for sure, he was still bad at math.

"That's impressive," I said.

"We should ride together," Derek suggested.

"Oh, I don't know."

"Come on!" he insisted.

I was at the end of my driveway with my bike, helmet, Motorola Jersey and a pile of beer cans. There was no way out of this.

"Okay," I said before I had time to process what I was agreeing to.

"Great! Let's go." Derek insisted.

We hardly pedaled a hundred feet when I noticed Derek was riding in the middle of the road and not yielding to cars behind us. A vehicle slowed to ascertain if it was safe enough to pass in the oncoming lane. As the guy approach, Derek yelled,

"Asshole!" then launched the one finger international symbol of ill will.

"I think he was just trying to get by," I offered.

"Fuck him!" Derek yelled, "I'm on a bike."

This was true. On a bike one is classified as a pedestrian who has a right to be on the road while the operator of a vehicle is exercising a privilege, but legal definitions are of little consequence when you're being squished by a distracted driver. We pressed on.

I dropped back so Derek could move in single file. As he did he expelled a particularly loud fart which I pedaled through. It smelled of bean dip and Gatorade. Apart from the fact that something in my nose was once in Derek's ass, I tried to make little notice of it. I simply moved into the lane to avoid the colorless, odorous, noxious cloud. Just before a slight hill Derek leaned to the left, pressed a finger on his right nostril and blasted a stream of snot from his nose. An atomized fog of phlegm hit me in the face, leaving tiny droplets on my glasses.

"Let's eat this hill!" Derek launched as he connected with his inner Lance Armstrong.

Derek stood up on the pedals and began swaying his bike back and forth. I downshifted allowing a greater distance between us. Derek rocketed down the other side of the slope. As he approached a red traffic light he scanned the area quickly then bolted across the intersection in defiance of the signal. I slowed until the light changed to green before I ventured into the crossroad. When I caught up, Derek asked,

"You want to go down town?"

The traffic in Mystic during the summer can be heavy, especially when the drawbridge opens. Before I had a chance to answer, Derek was darting for the road leading into town. I followed. As we pedaled in a single file, a small dog bolted across a stretch of grass. The dog stayed in its yard and chased us while it barked incessantly. Derek pulled out a slender white can with a red top from his back pocket, aimed then blasted the tiny dog with pepper spray. Derek drained the can into the little dog's face, causing the animal to whimper and retreat. He shook the can by his ear, looked at the label then threw it to the ground. The empty, white container clanked on the pavement as it bounced past me.

By now I was thinking, as a bicyclist Derek was a real douchebag, just like at work. He expelled fluids from his body, maced a Chihuahua, darted through traffic, rode in the middle of the road, yelled at motorists and discard trash in the street. I was going to catch up with him and let him have it. I was so angered, I stood up on my pedals to close the gap. When I was at his side, Derek asked,

"You take anything?"

I hadn't a clue what he was asking.

"Take what?"

"You know, performance enhancers."

"Like what?"

"Creatin, DHEA, testosterone, you know, EPO."

"Why would I take that shit?"

"It's sports medicine!"

"You mean 'dope'."

"Not all of us are willing to go the extra mile to realize our potential," Derek reasoned.

"Potential?"

"Yeah, a personal best."

"That stuff will kill you."

"You have to be committed if you want to perform at the next level."

I was dumbfounded that there are forty somethings like Derek still clutching onto Olympic dreams. A loud horn sounded, signifying the raising of the drawbridge. Derek got up on his pedals and took off like a roided out nutjob. He darted under the falling traffic boom, crossed over the road barrier before it rose from the street then rocketed across the bridge. I came to a full stop after which the bells began to sound and the bridge started to rise.

The opening of the old drawbridge crossing the Mystic River can be a twenty minute evolution, depending on the number of boats. I looked about as I waited. Derek was long gone. These days waiting for the boat traffic to clear doesn't bother me. I smelled what I thought was the soup of the day simmering in a nearby restaurant. I wondered what it was. I admired the boats slipping into the causeway. I glanced at the tourists standing before the pedestrian boom on the sidewalk. An elderly woman looked in my direction.

"The color of your bicycle is beautiful," she said.

My bike is blue with accents of yellow. I looked at the woman's eyes. She had lived a long life and now used a cane to walk. I wondered where she was from, where she was born and where she was to go. The old woman's eyes shone like aquamarines in the midday sun.

"Blue like your eyes," I said.

She smiled.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on July 27, 2017.