Break out the wire scrub brush
May 12, 2013 § 14 Comments
…because that’s what it’s gonna take to clean these shorts after the pre-ride this morning.
Characters
Chatty Casey
Gang Boss Buell
Crabs Caron
Wankmeister
The Ride
Saturday AM “Daddy Ride”
Meets at Kelly’s Corner, climbs up from the reservoir conversationally, climbs Better Homes conversationally, climbs the Domes conversationally, ramps it up at the Glass Church, sprunts at Hawthorne, finishes with a cup of coffee at Golden Cove Starbucks just in time to watch the Donut Ride come sailing by.
The Adventure
Crabs tows us up the Glass Church hill, hairy legs pounding. I take an easy pull once we’re over the top, saving my legs for the beatdown that’s up next when I join the World Famous Donut Ride. Casey drags us up the first bump past Terranea. Gang Boss takes over and accelerates on the short descent, then begins to stall as we come up the second bump right before the sprunt.
Crabs, smelling a blow-from-behind sprunt victory, comes out of the saddle and lunges down on the left pedal, all 195 pounds of butter, beef, fine wine, cheap beer, hot dogs, french fries, pecan logs, pizza, sausage, banana pie, ice cream, and peanut butter concentrating on the tiny contact point on his antique cleat. Unbeknownst to Crabs, I’ve been filing my nails and checking the want ads as he and his trusty trio have been doing all the work. Prez-like I look up, note the oncoming sprunt effort, and prepare to easily take the candy from the baby and pop it in my mouth with bike lengths to spare.
At that instant, Crabs’s left foot pops out of the pedal, and his bike crazy-dances in wild discontrol over to the left, the exact place that I’m about to come around. Time becomes extremely relative as I watch the slamming door of his rear wheel move backwards, derailleur and all, and over into my spokes. I see my face, Prez-like, splattering on the pavement. I see my brain, Prez-like, swelling up into a giant bruised grapefruit. I see my attorney drafting the lawsuit against the city of RPV for negligently paving the street in such a way as to make Crabs want to sprunt and thereby crashing me out. I definitely see Slowplay Pedals as a defendant for the negligent design of a cleat and pedal that Crabs has only been riding for fifteen years. I see the long line of speakers at my funeral, each one mumbling words of praise like, “We’re sort of going to miss that wanker, maybe.”
And then I see the impossible: Crabs follows the boneheaded move of the day with a move of parallel boneheadedness…his worn cleats and shredded Slowplay pedals pop his foot out of the right pedal as well. His butt, nuts, and pubic bone slam against the top tube and drive his bike radically to the right, away from my spokes and straight towards the curb at 35+.
The Redemption
This is the point in a bike crash where you and I close our eyes and await the impact. In this case it’s just past the pullout on the right, so he’s going over the bars, onto the gravel, and into the cliff wall. The collision will be severe, and you and I simply clench our teeth, mutter a few religious phrases and hope that Dog hasn’t noticed the lifetime of atheism and religion-bashing, and prepare to instantaneously meet the deductible on our health insurance policy.
Not Crabs.
Nuts crushed, gut impaled on the stem, and both gout-plagued feet sailing free in the wind, he looks away from the place he doesn’t want to go (Hades) and looks towards the place he does want to go (the road). His right foot hits the gravel and he jerks the bike away from the curb just before impact, trailing his left foot like a rudder, throwing up a shower of sand, gravel, and dirt with the right. No longer a player in the drama and merely a spectator, I watch with approval as he somehow avoids death. Gang Boss is looking over his shoulder, mouth agape, and Chatty Casey has for once stopped talking.
Crabs clips back in. Chatty regains his breath. “That was the most awesome save I’ve ever seen!”
“That was the stupidest move I’ve ever seen in my entire life since Tuesday,” I added.
“I suppose it’s time to replace the pedals,” Crabs suggested.
“Yes,” I agreed, “it is.”
Cycling in the South Bay 
Your pre-loop is better than my pre-loop
But it requires more detergent when you get home.
….sooooo…who won the sprint?
Gang Boss by 30 bike lengths, coasting all the way and looking over his shoulder.
Glad to see that ending. Hopefully we won’t see any of the precipitating actions in the Wank-o-Rama category today at Pontius.
Cross your fingers and legs!
Can’t wait to see and speak with Caron to see if his voice has gone up a couple of octaves from the slamming of the gonads.
It whacked them so hard his emails have even raised an octave.
good Save Hoosier Daddy!
Yeah, it was the save of all saves…nice to hear from you, Dave!
Hey wankster, for those of us that have recently started following your religious cult of cycling truth, can you write an article with all of your fellow cyclist friends, listing their nicknames and the M.O.s in the cycling world of PV? Thanks.
I have friends?
There is no ‘cheat sheet’ in this quasi-elitist cult. I ride with 93.2% of them on a regular basis and still have no idea who is who. It’s like this: Own your knickname if you have been annointed with one. Show up. Shut up. Don’t gap anyone out and take a f*ckin’ pull when it is your turn. The fewer questions you ask the better. And DO NOT aggrevate Wanky if he is in one of his moods. Got it?
Okay, that’s a friend, for sure.