Because Bikes: the Social Contract

We rounded a bend that the map said was a sure-fire exit from Monte Carlo to a coastal road that would run to Nice. My group numbered six, maybe seven riders—I no longer recall exactly because everyone was behind me, on my wheel. At the end of the curl sat a darkened maw—a tunnel. The white granite forming the mouth of the tunnel made the darkness within all the more complete. And that’s what concerned me. I couldn’t see even a pinpoint of light within. The tunnel must be long, must curve, I realized. And that thought filled me with dread. The amount of traffic on the road in Monte Carlo was the most we’d seen in two weeks, a density I rarely experienced in Los Angeles, where I lived at the time.

I’d chosen the road we were on, so in the algebra of blame, this was my fault. Tunnels can be scary to a cyclist, and to end a tour I’d planned on a sour, scary note made me concerned for everyone’s good time—and my reputation.

As we approached the tunnel I began the cyclist’s math: Everyone was tired; we’d been riding daily for two weeks, pedaling on the order of six hours most days. I carried an adrenal fear that without sufficient lighting in the tunnel we might be struck from behind. And without much lighting, how might we navigate the tunnel itself? We needed to enter, cross and exit the tunnel as quickly as might be managed. In the hundred meters left before entering the tunnel, I began to lift our pace, attempting to accelerate so gently no one would notice.

As we plunged toward the tunnel, I was scared—but not just of the dark. Leading everyone into and through that tunnel meant their safety depended on my pace, my line, and I had no idea what to expect.

The shard
When I first began doing group rides with the team my shop sponsored, I made an epic mistake one day. We were rolling down some backroad a dozen miles from the nearest Little Debbie Snack Cake and while taking my turn at the front, I failed to alert the riders behind me to a piece of glass in our path. I didn’t hit it, so why would I be concerned?

Then I heard pspsps, followed by another pspsps, and then … another pspsps. One piece of glass, three flats. A kind of achievement, that. We were all in our 20s, white and male, which is to say that what they had to say to me was uncluttered by diplomacy.

I hadn’t said anything. I hadn’t slapped my thigh and pointed down, which was the practice in that part of the South. I hadn’t even altered my line to put some distance between us and that sharp edge.

And that was the first time I connected the dots between my actions and the well-being of others, that how I acted held consequences that could loop back to the regard and trust that others held for me. Oh. When someone’s on my wheel, I’m responsible for their well-being.

Into the dark
We dove into the tunnel and while sodium vapor lamps dotted the ceiling they were placed at intervals that carried an expectation of headlights. I can’t recall how long the tunnel was, but I can tell you minutes passed and with each turn of the crank, I became more fearful that my friends might touch tires, that we might hit something we couldn’t see, that an oil spill could send us all Supermaning across the asphalt.

To the degree that there exists a god that shines on the foolhardy, they gifted me with a tailwind that the tunnel amplified and I leveraged that to keep our pace high.

Then, light. We emerged from the tunnel and from behind me whoops and cheers erupted. As for me? My throat closed, amazed that nothing had gone wrong, that no one wanted to flame-thrower me for leading us into a mountain, that somehow I’d pulled a win from an experience that seemed like nothing so much as looming disaster.

Bright as it was, I left my glasses nested in my helmet to let the wind flush the tears from my eyes.