The water bottle flew past my head. Its trajectory would give me a few inches to spare, but I ducked to the right just to make sure. Where was I? In a bike store confronting an angry clerk? In a heated post-race argument over the correct line in the final corner?
Nope, I was safely ensconced in a paceline heading south on our Saturday morning ride. Partly due to the tax policy of Colorado Springs and partly due to the cold December, the road was a patchwork of holes, many deep enough to swallow a wheel. I chose the safer, outside line; I like an ‘out’ if someone wiggles or has a brain fart. A few riders in front, the fellow in the Discovery kit, a former member of their masters team in California, hits a hole. The bottle flies over two riders, past my face, hits the pavement and slides harmlessly into the opposite lane.
There a bunch of us, some fit, some not so fit and we’re riding hard into a freezing fog. My fingers hurt, thawing now that we’re going hard and I’m pleased with how I’m feeling, strong and smooth, as we crest the hills before the pace ramps up on Marksheffel Road.
‘Shit!’ Discovery Guy has hit another pothole and this time his second bottle rolls underneath the wheel of the rider behind him, an older guy on a purple, steel bike with downtube shifters. His front wheel crushes the bottle and the contents spray into the air covering me from sunglasses to shoes. We’re going fast, I’m spun out in a 53x14, and Purple Bike Guy keeps himself upright despite a high speed wobble from two broken spokes in his front wheel. He pulls to the left of the line and a truck promptly does a high speed pass of the group and nearly kills him.
Sometimes groups rides are like this. A group dissonance runs through the pack and bad things happen. Wheels lap, guys make bad decisions, people get hurt. Thinking about it, it’s wondrous our high speed dance doesn’t result in more of this than it does. Discovery Guy is next to me in the paceline. He has no bottles left. ‘Think it’s time for some new cages?’
‘Did that guy go down?’ He seems concerned. ‘Nope, just broke some spokes.’ He’s satisfied with this and continues his ride. I imagine that Purple Bike Guy is on the side of the road, ten minutes later and several miles back now, thinking about his solo ride back to town on a broken wheel.
There is one more brainfart: a fellow on the Spike team, someone I’ve had words with before, comes by on the right side of the paceline and sends a shard of pottery skittering into the line. It clinks off several bikes before sliding underneath me. There was no reason for the fellow to push ahead on the inside, and doing so put us all in danger again. Later the same fellow splits the group by leading folks past the customary stop for water in Fountain.
We regroup and ride tempo north, towards home. This is our reconnecting time. Some of us have been gone, some have come for the first time and we chat in two rows, moving along at 22mph on the rolling roads to Fort Carson. The freezing fog is lifting and a cold sun is out. The temperature nudges past freezing and the sun warms our black layers and I feel relief. After our second sprint point, my lips and lower jaw were numb, the blood needed for more important things in the legs. Now, in the sun’s warmth and the comfort of the draft, everything seemed just right in the world.
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