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Two Wheels Good: Heroes and Villains
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4294 Reads
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What a villain left |
Two notes from my morning bike ride, about human nature:
Hero:
I'm clawing my way up Commonwealth Canyon, headed toward this little peak in Griffith Park at the top of Vista del Valle where you can catch your breath, look out over Los Angeles and feel glad to be awake and upright.
It's solid steep, maybe a 6% grade. I'm in granny gears - like, 1:4, spinning away.
Ahead there's a rider, pedaling faster, moving slower - in 1:2 by the look of him. I'll pass him at this pace, I figure, maybe say hello.
As I get closer, I realize he's missing his left leg ...
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He's just churning away smoothly with his right leg, his shoulders shifting to maintain balance, making his way up this long, nasty hill as steadily as any mountain biker I've ever seen.
Wow. Brilliant. Well maybe when I catch up, I figure, I can think of something admiring and meaningful to say. Something non-condescending. Like, "Hey," rather than "Lotta heart there, man. You rawk."
Then he senses there's someone on his tail, and he goes into overdrive.
He pedals nimbly up and around the fire gates (a neat thread-the-needle trick that involves riding up through a 3-inch-wide notch in the curb and up a 30-degree slope at an angle that takes you between two pine trees barely 3 feet apart) - and pulls away up past the Roosevelt Golf Course.
Cranking fast like it's no sweat at all.
I speed up a little, thinking I just lost my momentum - and I'm a strong climber - but he's just plain faster.
Now I'm tailing him at increasing distance, past the dog-walkers and iPodded joggers, past the grip trucks and honey wagon of a morning film shoot - all the way up the hill. By the time I reach the top, he's 50 yards ahead, and I have to veer off to my usual mountain-top leg-stretching stop.
And then he's gone, a mystery in the breeze.
If anyone knows who this rider is, I hope you'll encourage him to drop me a line. I'd like to buy him a beer - not because he's a one-legged cyclist (I've known others), but because he's probably a damned interesting guy.
Villain:
On the way back down, my red tail-flasher falls out from under my seat, bounces off my back tire, and hits the street.
Shit. Crummy bracket.
I pull to a stop on the right and look back up Griffith Park Boulevard. Traffic's slowing a bit, but I don't quite have time to dash and grab it.
A Toyota Previa - this innocuous little beige jellybean of a family van - slows as if the driver sees me.
"Don't hit it," I mutter. "Don't hit it, don't hit it, don't hit it."
He realizes I'm not going to dash and grab it. He then slows down further.
He lines up purposefully and perfectly.
And he drives right over it. Front-tire-back-tire-CRUNCHCRUNCH.
By the time I pick my jaw up off the pavement to yell something pointless like "You bastard!" he's sped off down Hyperion.
- Two Wheels Good: The Odorama Tour of Industrial L.A.
- Two Wheels Good: The L.A. Taint Ride
- Ridazz "Pirate" Ride (brief)
- Two Wheels Good: Midnight Ridazz 2nd Anniversary
- Two Wheels Good: Biking the L.A. River at Dawn
- Feeding Mosquitos at Griffith Observatory
- Full Moon Ride: Griffith Park & L.A. River by Bike
- Full Moon Ride: Ballona to Hermosa w/ Mystery Lights
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| Posted by: Mack_Reed on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 09:37 AM
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