kindness of strangers revisited
We were only four miles out of camp when the rain started coming down on Sunday morning. Liza and I rode our bikes out to Sandwich, at the base of Cape Cod, the day before as part of the Great Mass Getaway, a 150-mile charity ride from Boston to Provincetown to benefit Multiple Sclerosis. The weather 'til then had been grey, grim and windy, but still dry, yet the rain caught up to us after we got into camp, and had whipped up into a full blown storm overnight. I woke up at five on Sunday morning, and one of the first things Liza said to me was, "I can deal with sore muscles and climbing hills, but I'm not ready for cold and rain."
I just groaned and sat up, while digging out my bag and hoping that my clothes were still dry.
"You're still going to do this, aren't you?"
I shrugged and said, "yeah. Why not?" while thinking back to the ride Ann and I did two years ago, which was fifty miles of rain and wind that got called early because conditions had gotten too dangerous for road bikes. I added, "you'll be fine so long as you stay on the bike and keep pedaling. Keep your body heat up." Though, in retrospect, I think that may have come off as sarcasm, because nobody would've honestly thought that anything short of riding around in an electric banket could've kept any of us warm that morning.
The rain let up around 6, as we were finishing breakfast, and I got my bike on the road soon afterwards, hoping that the weather forecasts for dry weather in Provincetown weren't just lies meant to improve our morale.
I was a fool. I'll admit that now. I was only four miles out when the first raindrops fell, and within seconds I felt like I was riding in my bathroom shower, with the nozzle at full pressure and the temperature set at bone chilling. I had to stop to get out my sunglasses just so that I could see, because the raindrops were coming in so hard that it was physically painful to look straight ahead. Suck. Hardcore Suck. That this was all utterly contrary to any forecast we were given at camp made it Hardcore Suck with a Side of Bullshit drenched in a Fuckwad reduction sauce.
Still, once you get used to it, riding in the rain isn't that bad. Staying hydrated becomes less of a worry and the phrase "this sucks" starts turning into your own Zen koan. Stopping at checkpoints does get a little tricky. You can only stay warm while you're pedaling on your bike, so every minute resting at a checkpoint has this quadratic comfort/energy equation attached to it. Stand, rest, and risk hypothermia, or just slam some Ibuprofen to numb the pain in your knees and get back on the bike to get your core temperature back up?
I was considering this while pedaling across Truro later in the ride. There was something wrong with my front brakes, and it was rubbing against my tire and slowing me down. I considered sucking it up until I got to the next checkpoint, but eventually pulled into a roadside seafood restaurant with a covered outdoor eating area. I sat at a table, and started taking my front brake apart, cleaning out some of the grit and sand that had gotten wedged into the cabling. I love the fact that bike parts are relatively straightforward. Cars are indecipherable, complex and intimidating, but a bike can be assembled and disassembled with a few tools, a bit of patience and a good deal of intuition. I could sit at a table for hours, figuring out ways to tune up my bike. That is, of course, when it doesn't feel like Hell's frozen over and I don't have to worry about losing motor control in my fingers after the onset of hypothermia.
"Coffee?"
I looked up and there's this fourteen year old girl standing at the entrance to the restaurant. Her face is a mixture of bemusement and mild disgust, which is to be expected since I probably look like Mother Nature just vomited on me. I smile, say, "yes, please" and take the cup. I think I pretty much swallowed it in one gulp. She asks, "what are you riding for?"
"Multiple sclerosis."
"Oh, we were wondering why there were so many people. We thought you were all nuts or something."
"Well, that's not exactly a mutually exclusive thing."
I didn't tell the girl about my friend who's been diagnosed with MS, or how her symptoms tend to get worse when the weather gets colder, or that whatever bullshit I've had to deal with today won't even come close to what pyrric has had to deal with for the past year, but I thank the girl for the coffee, reattach my brakes and head back onto the route. I hope that the summer gets better later on, not just for my sake, but theirs too. I think we'll all be a little happier1 when the clouds lift and the sun reminds us what good weather can be like.
1 (insert obligatory damiel is a queer little bitch who likes cold weather too much joke here)