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| It's all downhill |
We fetched our bikes from the silver alley and hit the road. Before long we were on the climb out of Waterville. Up and up and up but not too steep. Soon I heard a friendly “beaver!” Shout. It was Stew and Rocket Booster, out of the saddle and climbing in sync up the hill, on their loaded tandem. Bad ass.
And I was climbing too. Just slowly, up and up and up. And up. Then down a bit. Then around a curve. Then up some more and then a turn. Yeah! Turn!
Once the road turned, we were on a slightly more busy road, with traffic passing, occasionally, and even more worrisome, troopers with their lights blazing and ambulances screaming by. We were in hill country, but this was a lovely little stretch of ridge line, mostly flat with long gorgeous views down the valleys.
I had my little speaker going and George Harrison’s song, “I Got My Mind Set on You” was playing. Now, I’ll admit, I don’t have the best taste in music, but I love this song. It’s happy, and it kind of pumped me up when I thought about my LDR. My mind was with him and it was helping me make things happen—of course, it was going to take time, a whole lot of precious time, and money, a whole lot of spending money, to make it happen, but that is what I wanted, to make it happen.
A guy rode by and said, “ugh, is this the most repetitive song ever?” And passed me. He said it in a nice way, so when we turned slightly down hill and I caught up with him, I rode passed singing the song loudly to him. We repeated this pattern until the song ended.
Then I saw the sign for Yellow Banks State Park. And a left turn.
Here we go.
Down. Down. Down. We zoomed. I have gotten better at descending. I swear that I have, but this was something us. Just a massive scream down to what? What was at the bottom? A crash? A party? A colony of beavers.
I tried to ease up on the brakes and just let go. Cheeks clenched and surprising a girlish scream of terror, I streamed down into the valley, tandem cyclists rocketing by me on all sides.
I remember zooming into the valley pretty confidently, but any time I remember the descent I basically have a panic attack because I convince myself I don’t actually know how to ride a bike and I’m so lucky not to have crashed. My heart rate just shot up writing this comment.
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