Rites of Passage: the Cut

Entering adulthood isn’t something conferred upon us on our 18th or even 21st birthday. Legally, maybe, though even the law can find this threshold fuzzy. But real adulthood arrives only after a collection of misadventures. For most of us, our identity as a cyclist, the point at which we can say were are cyclists and not just people who like to ride bikes, arrives by some similar collection of misadventures.

Our first flat won’t do it. Even our second and third flats won’t get us there. Similarly, that first time we end up with the Fred tattoo (the greasy mark on the right calf), or after we’ve turned our hands black and stare at them in astonishment—wondering how we will get them clean miles from our best kitchen cleaners—those don’t grant it either.

But at a certain point we collect enough of these, like frequent flyer miles, and we realize we’re cyclists. No one has the power to tell you you’ve arrived. At a certain point you know.

I experienced a turning point, if not an actual arrival, some time during the summer of 1997, my first full year of riding. I’d heard guys at the shop I frequented talk about doing rides that lasted as long as 50 miles. That number defied comprehension, like the national deficit or the number of notes Eddie Van Halen could play in a minute. They inspired me and I hatched an idea.

There was a highway that ran between Memphis and the Naval base in Millington. It had a wide shoulder and ran straight as a runway for long enough that the local club used it for time trials. I decided I would ride to its end, turn around, and ride back. What’s comical—in retrospect—is how I covered many more miles getting to the highway than I did on my out-and-back. This is what I knew of distance.

At first, the going was easy. I had a slight wind at my back on this summer day, but it, like youth, wasn’t to last. The wind vanished, a Houdini act that left me gasping for anything other than the steam that filled the air around me. Moments later, borderline delirious from the full oppression of the Memphis summer, I ran over a piece of glass. I pulled over, into the pizza oven and changed my flat over an interval that lasted as long as a sitcom.

As I changed the flat I realized that could see through the tire. Not that it was threadbare, rather, there was a slice big enough push a Sharpie through. This was something I’d never experienced before. With the new tube installed, it poked through, an aneurysm of black rubber that threatened to surrender the air I needed to make it home.

Back on my bike, I couldn’t figure whether I was better off pedaling harder and going faster in order to generate more airflow over my leaking pores, or going slower and suffering in the stifling stillness.

Once back into the outskirts of Memphis, I pulled over at a 7-Eleven and bought the largest bottle stocked of fruit punch Gatorade. I couldn’t figure why it tasted so sweet. Little did I know I was epically dehydrated and bonked. Worse, a black sky to the west signaled a coming thunderstorm. Could I make it back to my dorm with my rear inner tube attempting to flee the tire?

I used some of my remaining change to call my father. I told him my situation and where I was, and implored him to save me. My father was in the middle of socializing; I no longer recall with whom, but I recall that he was busy, with a friend, possibly a date, though he wouldn’t have admitted that directly. My pleading was effective enough to get him to wind up his fun, get in his car and drive the 45 minutes to where I was.

Exercise physiologists, in discussing bonking, will stress how our faculties suffer. Our judgment goes from stellar to laughable. Let me demonstrate: As I stood outside of the 7-Eleven, chugging my second overly sweet Gatorade, I watched as more and more of the sky went from gray summer haze to charcoal. I began to doubt that my father would arrive in time to save me—from rain. I doubted that he would find me—I explained exactly where the convenience store was and who can’t spot a 7-Eleven from half a mile away? I heard a clock ticking and my fear of the alarm’s buzz caused me to climb back on my bike and begin pedaling back to my dorm.

With each rotation of the tire, that tube kissed the asphalt. Asking my father to pick me up was … immature. Leaving the location I’d asked him to drive to was … no, it’s okay, I’ll wait for you to finish laughing.

The most amazing part of my silliness is that I made it back to my dormitory. No additional flats. Stephen King once wrote, “God favors drunks, small children and the cataclysmically stoned.” I wasn’t drunk or stoned, so I guess that means at some level I was still a child. I was luckier than I deserved, and in that, I fulfilled yet another bullet point on my way to becoming a cyclist. It was a mistake I knew I should avoid repeating, though I didn’t yet know how.