Mood:
hug meTopic: 1998
On June 15, 1998, after crossing the bridge out of Seattle, I quickly found a way to become the last rider in the pack of 730 cyclists. I flatted only to be saved by a passing cyclist who stopped and changed the tube for me, made it to the first pit stop to find it closing up, fell, and flatted again. A SAG (support and gear) van sweeping the route stopped to help me with the flat, but we immediately blew the new tube, and rather than risk blowing my last tube, the driver threw my bike on top of the van, I climbed in, and he drove me to Pit Two so a mechanic could change the tire.
And my sorry tale continues....
Lucky Pennies
As we ascended, the road was slick from rain, and the SAG van driver pointed out a place where three riders had crashed earlier. Near the top, we passed a few riders stopped to take pictures of the falls, but by the time I arrived at Pit 2, nearly all the riders had arrived or passed through before me. I was the only one wet from rain as the clouds were behind us now, but bearing down quickly. One of the bike techs traveling with us for the summer changed my tube while I shivered and tried to eat a banana. I wasn't hungry exactly, but my body was craving some kind of comfort. Some of the riders had paid to have bag lunches available to them at the second pit stop on days with limited stores and restaurants along the route, so they wouldn't have to worry about being able to supplement the breakfast and dinner already provided. I had decided to trust my luck to find what I needed and now eyed the other riders' sandwiches with envy. I kept hoping to see Hans drive up so that he and I could find a place to have lunch together, but by this time he had already said his final good-byes to the ride and turned toward home.
As I stuffed the last of the banana in my mouth and was complaining aloud of being cold and wet, a Washington woman took charge of the situation. "Come on, we've got to get you back on the road." I was scared again and skeptical, but she didn't leave me room for argument. She introduced herself as Zoi, and I recognized her as the woman who had earlier that morning offered me an energy bar at the top of a hill while I stopped to catch my breath and use my inhaler. I later realized she was the twenty-eight-year-old Seattle schoolteacher whom I had admired in pre-ride meetings. When we had gone around the room giving our reasons for doing the ride, hers had been that she hoped to be an inspiration to her students, demonstrating that big dreams can be accomplished. And here she was, helping me accomplish mine in spite of any nervousness of her own.
She led me out of the pit stop parking lot and down an entrance ramp toward the freeway. We entered the shoulder of eastbound I-90 to begin the 2,300 vertical foot climb over Snoqualmie Pass. I felt sluggish and sick and completely incredulous that I was following this woman up the side of this mountain. In hindsight, I know I hadn't eaten enough that day--half of a Power Bar during opening ceremonies and a banana at Pit 2--nor drank enough water. Add in the sleep deprivation of the previous night, and I had no business being on that freeway. But then again, neither probably did anyone else.
Zoi turned out to be the perfect leader. She set up a routine of riding and resting that my lungs could handle. Sometimes we only managed to ride a few hundred feet before I needed a break, but at least we were making progress. I began to feel better physically and emotionally with every small bend we rounded.
During one of our stops, Zoi recognized Cynthia struggling up the mountain behind us. She was one of the women with whom I had traveled earlier who had chosen the ride/walk option for hill climbing. She appeared to be in her late twenties, too, and as new to cycling as Zoi and I were. Her determination to complete this adventure was evident, however, in the slow, rhythmic pedal stroke she maintained despite the uphill terrain and the roundness of her body. Zoi laid her bike over into the gravel at the side of the road and skipped back down the mountain. When the two of them reached me, Zoi introduced us. Cynthia's cheeks were as pink as I expected mine were, but she was smiling as all three of us resumed the uphill battle.
We had nineteen miles of climbing between Pit 2 and Pit 3 at the summit. Occasionally other riders passed us, and at one detour we were required to take onto a small side street, we caught up with a couple of riders from Texas, Jane and Jon, who sarcastically asked whether Washington cyclists ever pedaled up this mountain "just for fun." [Later I learned that certain Washington riders do in fact ride the mountain for fun!]
The rain didn't wait long before catching up with us. At first, we ignored it. Despite the falling temperatures, I was radiating a lot of heat and didn't mind the cool drops. Eventually, though, the temperature fell enough that I stopped to put on rain pants over my leggings and shorts. We passed a traffic advisory sign that alternately warned motorists to beware of bicycles and announced the now freezing temperature of 32 degrees. The rain decreased visibility. Drops hit and stayed on our glasses. Our lenses fogged repeatedly from the heat of our faces, making blindness another factor in deciding when we stopped to rest.
I have no idea how long the three of us chugged up that hill together. Time seemed to stand still, and the road just kept going up in front of us. Conversation was difficult as we were reserving our breath for climbing, and the automobiles flying past us were loud. When semis passed, we were slammed in the side with a blast of wind and cold water spray. We did our best to point out debris on the shoulder to the rider behind us and, surprisingly, none of us flatted on the glass or metal we continually dodged.
At some point, I noticed other, rather odd debris: two pennies about a foot apart, one heads up and one heads down. I remember thinking how strange it was to see coins on the shoulder of a freeway. Tire rubber was one thing, change was another.
Even stranger was that it didn't turn out to be an isolated occurrence. Further up the mountain, I saw more coins--an occasional nickel or dime, but mostly pairs of pennies. The pennies were always within a foot or two of each other, and always one heads up, one heads down, as though someone had planted them in this careful arrangement for me to find. Neither Cynthia nor Zoi mentioned seeing them, and when after the fourth pair I finally asked whether they had noticed them, too, they both shook their heads.
A few years earlier, the arrangement of the coins would have meant nothing to me. Growing up, I had always clung to the find-a-penny, pick-it-up, all-day-long-you'll-have-good-luck theory of lost and found coins. But recently my dad had introduced me to an opposing view, that only heads up pennies were good luck. So here I was on Day One of a forty-eight day trek climbing a mountain freeway on a bicycle in freezing temperatures and pouring rain and finding pennies that alternately promised good and bad luck. I considered stopping to take a picture of the coins, but the immediacy of the weather, the traffic, and the never-ending climb of the road overwhelmed the impulse to preserve the bizarre find on film.
While I was examining a pair of these coins during one of our rest breaks, a red school bus pulled quickly over onto the shoulder behind us and came to a noisy and abrupt stop. We were startled. When the door opened, Cynthia learned from the driver that the bus was one of two the Big Ride had hired for the summer as support vehicles. Cynthia gratefully hoisted her bike up the stairs, while Zoi and I continued up the mountain.
Before long, an urgent need to urinate consumed both my body and my mind. This was the last straw. Now there was no room for thoughts of anything but the cold, the rain, the burning in my legs and lungs, and the conviction that my bladder was going to burst before I found another Port-A-Potty.
"I have to stop to find a place to pee," called Zoi over her shoulder.
"Me, too!" I answered with relief.
I waited with the bikes, scouting my own location, as Zoi hurried down the side of the mountain in grass taller than her knees toward a line of pines. I had not peed outdoors since I was a child, and the prospect of doing so now was not at all appealing. My bladder was insistent, however, and when Zoi emerged, I started down the steep slope in the direction I decided would offer the best cover. The grass was so thick and tall that I couldn't see the ground where I stepped, and my feet slipped more than once as they sank into mud.
When I had finally found a place free of brambles and sufficiently hidden from the view of traffic, I pulled my rain pants, tights, and shorts down to my knees, and squatted, stretching the elastic waist bands as far forward as I could. Now, my nearly frozen flesh was hanging out in the rain and being swiped by blades of wet grass in the cold wind. My thigh muscles burned even more as I tried to relax.
Nothing happened. Come on! I pleaded silently. Still more nothing happened. At last, I pulled the three pairs of wet pants up over my hips and trudged back up the mountain, still in pain and shaking my head at Zoi.
"I couldn't relax enough!"
"What do you want to do?" Zoi asked, sympathetically.
"Keep going, I guess, and hope the pain goes away."
We climbed back on the bikes, inching upward toward a summit I couldn't envision and only half-believed existed. We had no idea how far we still had to go and saw no other cyclists, just a constant stream of cars and trucks that threw water at us as they passed.
The rain came down harder and colder. The exertion of pedaling no longer generated enough heat to convince me that I was anything even resembling warm. My fingers were numb, and I wished I had brought winter gloves, but I had not foreseen freezing temperatures in any of my dreams of what this summer adventure might hold.
"You know, any time you're ready, I wouldn't mind stopping for good,"
I called up to Zoi.
She planted both feet on the asphalt. "I'm ready."
We were both soaked through and shivering, as, for the second time that day, a SAG van miraculously appeared behind me in response to my telepathic call. We both gave the driver the thumbs down signal, and he pulled onto the shoulder and jumped quickly out.
"The van's nice and warm!" he called as he hoisted my bike up onto the roof.
"How far are we from the pit stop?"
"About four miles. The route's closed after Pit 3, though. With the rain and the wind, the descent is too dangerous, so you'll be able to catch a ride by bus into camp."
I followed Zoi into the already packed van, and squeezed onto the rear bench. As I watched the rain fall outside the van's windows, images of those pennies by the side of the freeway surfaced again in my mind. I breathed in the warmth of the van's heater cranked to maximum and settled back against the seat, understanding their message at last. On this journey, I would choose my own luck.
