Relative Something

I’ve ridden in a lot of rain over my years of cycling. During this year’s “Jaunt with Jim” we had more rainy days than sunny days, but it was far from the worst weather we’ve ever experienced. Some days we received just enough rain to get things wet and then the clouds would sort of drape down out of the sky and offer their mist to anything exposed to the elements. This is just about the worst possible formula for riding across old bridge decks of treated wood. In my extreme focus to maintain the intended upright position of my bicycle, I neglected to capture a photo of the Caution signs at each bridge, warning that they are slippery when wet.

Unfortunately, under the conditions experienced during this year’s ride, we suffered more crashes than any other year I’ve ridden. What’s worse, almost all of them led to visible injury. There were scraped hips, ripped shorts, bloody elbows, wicked bruises, and even at the extreme, one broken hip. The story of that one is already legend.

I was told that the second person who stopped to help was Rich, our favorite Geocache enthusiast. After they established the severity of injury was going to require EMS response, Rich marked the location on his GPS and then headed off on his bike in search of enough signal for his cell phone to function. He was able to direct the responders to the exact location on the trail. Did you know the bridges of the Root River Trail are just wide enough to allow an ambulance to cross?

I was lucky to survive the bridges without incident, but all the attention directed at that potential hazard might have contributed to my lapse of attention on the safe, flat asphalt. For the first time in all my years of cycling, as I was intending to return my water bottle to its cage, I missed. I glanced down to take aim, placed the bottle where I thought it was supposed to go, and let go. It was one of those moments that seem to slow down dramatically in our minds as several thoughts process faster than our reaction can do anything about it.

Mary demonstrates the proper orientation: upright, wheels on the ground

I let out some short exclamation of warning, because I was smack dab in the middle of a double pace line of multiple riders. Closest to me, and at highest risk, was my sister, Mary. I was sure I had doomed her to a crash, but she proved her cycling prowess by maintaining control and staying upright as she rode both tires right over the bottle. I have never been more relieved for one of my mistakes to NOT bring harm to another. I am in debt to Mary for her ability to out-navigate the hazard I had created.

Just a short moment later, as I was working to catch back up to the group after turning back to go pick up my dropped bottle, I saw the most startling sight. Something was all over the road right behind Bob and Julie! Critters? Two of them appeared to cross the road and two others just stayed put. What in the heck? I was working my mind to determine what it could be that I was one second away from needing to deal with, when the hilarious reality of what I had just witnessed, registered. They had just dropped two water bottles each in a spontaneous bombing raid for me.

It was classic. Genius performance art. And the main reason I was able to enjoy it so much is because Mary didn’t crash. Thanks, Mary.