The glitter of gold or roadside rubbish?
Energy and effort are required to get a bicycle up to speed, and on my ride to work each day, I rarely leave much wiggle room on the clock. It takes a lot to get me to stop. If I spot something interesting on the berm, especially on my first flyby, I typically make a mental note and plan to check it again on the way home. I’ve written about this strategy before. Sometimes the treasure is still there for me on the ride home, sometimes not.
Last Tuesday was an anomaly. Despite a stiff headwind and a morning rain shower that caught me just a few miles into my route, I was nevertheless willing to instantly loop back to what I’d tentatively identified as a gold chain on the ground.
Through my rain-spattered riding glasses, the chain seemed to fit the style of a rapper or even a straight-up gangster. Either one of which, I reasoned, could probably get along just fine without this particular strand of high-dollar adornment. It was big, bright and most definitely gold. I scooped it off the wet asphalt, and with only 5 miles left to ride, I balled the chain up awkwardly in my left hand — the one that controls my front brake — and proceeded on. “Who needs a front brake when you’ve got a perfectly fine rear brake?” I remember thinking.
Onward I rode, and just starting down the steepest descent of the journey, I tapped my rear-brake lever to slow just a bit. The lever drew loose in my hand! The universe had selected this moment to shear the head off the cable that made the whole braking process possible.
Now blasting downhill in the rain with a handful of gold rapper bling in place of a brake, I made the mistake of wondering aloud what could possibly happen next. It was at this very moment my front wheel spiraled into a rotating “hiss” as the tire rapidly deflated. Friction and gravity slowed me to a stop. “Things could be worse,” I thought. “I’ve still got a pretty nice gold chain!”
As is the matter of course in such situations, I promptly pushed my bike off the roadway and set about replacing the punctured tube with one of the trusty patched and repatched spares I keep in my backpack. The final step of this process is pumping air, using a tiny cartridge of CO2. It’s quick and easy and typically gets you back on the road in minutes — unless, of course, one’s repatched tube springs a leak of its own!
Now listen: I’m no fortuneteller, but it didn’t take a mystic to realize everything went to mush the moment I scooped up that stupid gold chain (which, by the way, was now looking a lot more like a gaudy accessory for a hanging lamp than a 24 karat declaration of outrageous wealth). Bling or no bling, I ceremoniously placed the chain right back onto the tarmac where I’d found it, and I did so before I tried my last tube and final CO2 cartridge.
The self-intervention was a success. I rolled on toward work having reaffirmed the lesson that all that glitters is not gold.
Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John atjlorson@alonovus.com.
