My friend Noah Pointed out that I had omitted an important part of my
humiliation cycle my junior year during spring break so I will
include those stories now. I don't recall exactly being invited to
ride with the older set of drafting class cronies to Moab for spring
break but somehow I was included. I think I may have sort have
invited myself because it sounded fun. Either way I was all set to go
for a couple of days of riding the slick rock trails of Moab and
hanging out with some pretty cool guy who may or may not have been
entirely on board with my inclusion. The trip was planned in a rather
convoluted way because some of the kids had to stay and work and
could only come later so we decided to head down first, ride a little
and camp and then when the other boys could join us they would. I
didn't have a working bike at the exact moment that we were going to
leave but a friend of mine who was coming later in the week said I
would take mine down on the first wave in the truck and he would just
use it when he joined us. Sounded easy, too easy as it turned out. We
arrived early enough in the day to ride the trail before we made camp
and it was really awesome for about the first four hundred feet when
my borrowed bike went ahead and pooped the med mechanically. One of
the cable sheaths that kept tension on the back derailleur split wide
open and shifted me into the hardest gear. I went from a pretty
reasonable 21 speeds to a way too hard three speed. Also I was a
little worried about how mad the bike's owner was going to be because
I had technically been on his bike when it broke. Anyone would agree
that there is nothing a gear shifting person could do to blow that
part up but none the less it was still blown up and in bike heaven
with all the other pretty bike part angels. The rest of the trail was
grueling because I couldn't down shift on climbs. There are also
sand-traps all along the trail that I didn't know about and I bashed
off into a couple so as to not become overly elated about my
torturous ride. I was way behind the group by the time I finished and
I remember one of the kids being pretty cranky about that. We loaded
up and went and made camp out by the river and cooked dinner when it
was time for bed I went into someones smallish tent and slept
fitfully through the night. I woke up really early and tried some
fishing which didn't work and then we waited for the other guys to
arrive. The didn't. In these dark ages before cell phones we were
racking our brains about how to get in touch with them. Someone, not
I, decided to call one of the other boys family, collect, from a
payphone and tell them where we were in the hopes they would think to
call in and get the information. After a couple of calls like that
they got dialed in and we met them at our camp. The kid whose bike I
borrowed was really pissed that his bike was broken. He sassed me and
insulted my riding and asked what the hell I had done to break it
like that. Nothing was the answer and I was being unjustly targeted
for punishment but I felt so bad I didn't protest. A couple of guys
went with him into town and tried to find a replacement but if I
remember right they didn't at any of the local bike shops. He was
then subjected to the same power biking nightmare that I had to go
through the day before. I spent the day hanging out with some rock
climbers I had met and climbed a few of the dirtiest routes known to
man. I had a great time that day and by night fall when we met back
at camp maybe all was forgiven or at least there was no more open
hostility and camping with funny guys after a good day outside is
about as good as it gets.
