A Word from Deep in the Pack
by Jeff VanBlarcom
Dahon is a proud sponsor of 'Team Flō'. The team all ride Dahon Flō's and are achieving great success attacking races in the US including 24 Hour competitions in Moab, Temecula and Tuscon.
It
first struck me at the grocery store in Moab. Almost everyone in the store
was grossly overweight and remarkably unattractive. Such acne! Such prodigious
flesh and grotesque expanses of skin! Such difficulty with the counting
of the change! I had returned to the world of normal people from the fantasy
world of avid mountain bikers at the 24 hours of Moab. Having just spent
the last 48 hours or so in a artificially created place where almost everyone
is fit and thin, television is a distant memory, lost wedding rings and
iPods are returned to their rightful owners almost instantly and the motivation
level is extremely high, it was quite a shock. I wanted to go back. I guess
that I will have to wait for another year for the party to reconvene. It
struck me again, almost literally, as I was on my way out of Moab and a
passenger in the car in front of me unabashedly threw a small bag of trash
out of the window.
That is not to say that it is some sort of utopia without fault. The level of competition is high, spawning some discontent and cursing that would make a seasoned construction worker cringe. Each flat tire or other such mechanical failure is accompanied by profanity and a momentary deep resentment of course designer and absence of divine protection alike. Have I not trained hard enough? Do I not deserve a reprieve from bad luck for just a short time? Why does the guy in front of me hate me so? On one of my laps, I had a problem with my right leg and its connection to the pedal which apparently messed with the smooth flow and righteous power of the rider whom I had just passed, prompting a string of obsenities the likes of which was rather frightening, despite my eager use of such phrases in the privacy of my own home. I'm guessing that he was not one of the Christian riders, one of whom graciously blessed me after sneezing in the shower.
Oh
yes! The showers! There is nothing quite like bathing behind what amounts
to old time western saloon doors while gazing up at the moon. There seem
to be equal numbers of men and women partaking of this. Modesty is not at
a premium at such races, and why should it be? Bathing was particularly
necessary for me after participating in the LeMans start at the beginning
of the race, running through dust and scrub around a tree and back to our
bikes. It is now a week later and I am still coughing up Moab dust, some
of which just may be radioactive. No more radiation than just a few x-rays,
I'm guessing. Low dose chemotherapy never really hurt anyone. After a few
laps, some of the riders certainly did need to bathe and may have been well-suited
to some sort of flea-dip decontamination as well. How is it that some guys
can smell so offensively bad after riding for less than 10 minutes? It takes
me at least an hour before my wife with her delicate sensibilities will
ask rather impolitely that I venture somewhere other than where she is,
preferably the shower, after a ride. That's OK because I always enjoy a
beer in the shower as I'm peeing on the floor.
This year, I had the unfortunate pleasure of trying to live up to my team's history of running quite well. It was my turn after all. Our runner from last year was the first back to his bike, and we previously raced with a marathoner who seemed to have no trouble destroying the field on the run. I guess it only counts for style points and I have no trouble admitting that I am not particularly cool, having just purchased a mini-van and being somewhat less than a slave to fashion. Thankfully the run time is not a stat that is recorded, as I failed miserably to reclaim the title from the previous year, much to the dismay of my teammates. I had a strong first lap, so all was forgiven. AND, as I was pulling my bike out of the rack, I was treated to the sight of a fashionable rider standing in front of me wearing not much more than a American flag thong. A male rider. That was a memorable if not particularly welcome sight. I was wearing my sunglasses and therefore was only able to capture about 78% of the full glory, which was more than enough. Shouldn't we have some sort of amendment to prohibit that?
Most
people who participate, I'm guessing, do not feel that they have a legitimate
chance of winning anything other than a sense of accomplishment, a little
chafing and some road rash. I think that if there was a "regular guy"
category, in which no one who works at a bike store would be allowed to
participate, we would fare much better in the standings. As it stands, we
have to be retrospectively satisfied with nebulous ideas such as "no
injuries" or "no catastrophic mechanical failure." What good
is that? I don't rightly know. So we manufacture a little rivalry of our
own with other teams, who probably don't know that we are gunning for them.
One team in particular, from whom we have received nothing more than a slight
affront to our character, became my personal nemesis. Actually they are
annoyingly nice by and large. Damn them. I fared quite well against them,
passing them on each and every one of my laps at a blistering yet stylish
pace, but in the end we lost to them by around ten minutes. That's acceptable
given that I seem to function better with a nemesis.
I discussed biking as a hobby with my teammates and ventured to say that
it is somewhat of a selfish in that it mostly involves training alone and
does not really help anyone but myself. I was disabused of this to a degree
in that investing in your mental well-being is not entirely selfish, as
others typically benefit from one's mental and physical fitness as well.
It is somewhat hard to argue that riding your bike at 2 am, thong or no
thong, is an entirely sane activity, but it does have its virtues. I am
still thinking about what exactly those virtues are, but nothing at work
seems so unpleasant in comparison. Immodestly prancing around my office
in tight pants may not really be seen as sane either, and if my legs weren't
quite so hairy it might only be mildly amusing, rather than actually frightening,
to my co-workers. Being the fourth or fifth most powerful man in the greater
Salt Lake City metro area allows me certain freedoms and privileges unfamiliar
to the masses. Biking seems to keep me sane to a degree and I am not sure
that I ever want to be seen as normal.
As a friend and I were watching riders come in to the finish area, a female rider rode by saying "I did it, I really did it!" This struck us as odd given that she did not seem to be saying this to anyone in particular, but who can deny those feelings to someone who just completed a lap on a difficult course? We felt it necessary to suggest to her that her teammates may feel strongly that she do it again, perhaps even more than once, but refrained on the premise that her mental health seemed to be hanging in the balance. It is a fine line, I suppose. My sense of self-accomplishment is not quite so overtly public, but having the best time on my team is something that I am proud of, even if we didn't stand on the podium when others were looking.