Cycling in the South Bay

When the hardest group ride in America starts out at 30 mph on the neutral section, you know you’re in for a beating, an “in the wrong neighborhood” beating, a Muhammad Ali beating, a mad charwoman with a steel bat-on-a-carpet beating, an adult video + tissue box beating, a John Bonham intro to “Rock and Roll” beating, or you just recognize the facts: You’re on the North County San Diego Swami’s Ride and it’s not going to be pretty.

After the warmup had slimmed the group of 50 down by a rider or two, we roared up Levant. Rather, Phil Tinstman roared. Everyone else cowered, grit their teeth, and cursed whatever draft they had for not being draft enough.

The group slimmed a bit more.

The previous night I had ended up in a bar slurping Hangar 24 DIPA’s. Now, dangling by a wheel, they were starting to slurp back. It was a briny, acidic, poisonous taste, kind of like drinking from a port-o-potty.

Thankfully, as in “Oh my dog thank you baby Jeebus,” the light at Rancho Santa Fe was red, which meant that those who made it could catch their breath, and those who straggled up just as the light turned green would meet their doom shortly up the road. The climb up Rancho Santa Fe shed a few more pounds, and the climb up to Elfin Forest blew the stragglers and strugglers out the back like a snot rocket.

A breakaway formed with Phil, Brian Stack, Chris Johnson, and about ten others. Those of us in the shelled group would have been done for the day had we not been joined by Karl Bordine. Karl rides like a wood chipper. He grinds everyone up into little organic bits that are useless for anything except mixing with cow shit and spreading as fertilizer.

Karl brought the break back, and broke the back of many in the group, which further slimmed. The peloton was now a walking ad for SlenderBolic. Phil won the sprunt to the church. There were perhaps 15 or 20 riders out of the starting gaggle of 50. I got off my bike and lay in the grass, cursing the beer and the speed and the hills and bicycles and Newt Gingrich.

“It was fast today,” said one of the Fast Men.

“Yeah, it was,” said another one of the Fast Men.

“Blecccch,” I said.

The second half wasn’t as torrid, since several of the fastest riders continued on for a longer ride. But coming into the final rolling section, Tater attacked, Stack followed, and I got dragged along. He broke the group into pieces, towed me up over the last hill, took a deep breath and towed me all the way to the imaginary sprint finish, which I apparently won. Brian is sixteen.

After the ride Mrs. WM and I decided to go the pool. The Econolodge’s bathing facility was a 10′ x 10′ kiddie pool surrounded by a steel fence. “This thing look like its onna jail,” she said.

“Yeah, but we can drink all the beer we want and not have to worry about lifeguards.”

“I ain’t wearin’ onna my bikini here.”

“How come?”

“Itsa pool lookin’ out onna highway. Itsa creepers driven’ slow googling on my panty bottoms.”

So we called up a pal who was staying at the La Costa Rich People’s Hotel and Snoboretum. “Yo, Toronto,” I said. “Can we come hang at your hotel pool?”

“Sure!” he said.

“We got beer and chips and salsa and pork rinds and dried octopus legs with kimchi.”

“Ah, okay.”

Pretty soon we were at the Snoboretum. We had to give our name and driver license to the security guard, put a placard that said “Visitors/Too Cheap To Afford A Room” on the dashboard, park in a rock garden, and walk three miles over to the area where the real guests were.

But it was a bitching pool, and my appearance wearing bright red shorts, a bright red t-shirt, and hiking boots made quite a splash. Fortunately I had “SPY” plastered everywhere, making a good showing for my sponsor. The only down side was that the pool had a bar and restaurant in the pool area, so when we staggered in carrying six plastic bags that said “Safeway” which were filled with chips, beer, and dried octopus parts, the pool staff, who were wearing outfits modeled on “The Love Boat,” told us we weren’t allowed to bring in outside food or drink.

“Thatsa okay,” said Mrs. WM. “We don’t eat no outside food. Alla this food is inside food.”

By the time they had brought in an interpreter, who ended up tearing out his hair and ripping off his Love Boat insignia in despair, I was already a full six-pack in and didn’t care when security confiscated our salsa. Surprisingly, they left the octopus parts.

Shortly after we were escorted out, we ended up at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. It was a sold out event, and the main attraction wasn’t the Pine Mountain Logs, whose name reminds me of something left behind in a public bathroom, but the jazzy rock band, or the rocky jazz band Horn if You’re Honky.

The drummer for HiyH, my good friend Michael Marckx, was celebrating his 50th birthday, and it was an awesome performance. Many songs were sung, melodies were horned, rhythms were banged, bass lines were thumped, and keyboard accompaniments were hammered. I was amazed at the athleticism of the percussion, or maybe I was just having a hard time not falling out of my chair after swilling too much beer. Who knows?

It was an electric performance.

Towards the end of the set I mingled with the crowd and marveled at its energy, as well as at the fact that no one seemed to be getting high. So many friends and teammates from the cycling community were there that I half expected someone to announce that we would be rolling out in ten minutes. Instead, we grooved on the amazing HiyH set and huddled around our tequila shot glasses, trying to discern whether we were holding up the bar or vice versa. I think it was vice versa.

At the end of the evening, Mrs. WM gave me a small baggie filled with a sopping wet sports bra and workout panty that she had borrowed earlier in the day for a yoga workout. I toiled through the crowd until I saw Alan. “Yo, dude, here’s some wet women’s underwear. Can you give it to Mrs. xxx? We gotta hit the road.”

Alan, ever the good sport, said “Sure!” and immediately posted it for sale on eBay via his iPhone.

We sailed home through the deserted SoCal freeway until we hit the not-so-deserted freeway shutdown at Westminster, where a 5-mile detour took two hours to navigate. Home at 2:30 AM, we may not have horned, but we sure did honky.