My first thought going over the rock wall was “Dad’s going to think I’m dead.” I landed gently, on my side, in a thicket of tall grass and soft bushes. I grabbed my helmet, feeling it for signs I’d hit my head on anything sharp, and rolled my neck to make sure it would still rotate. Then I popped to my feet and started yelling. “I’m ok, I’m ok, I’m ok!”
My dad had just seen me go tearing down a hill, tucked into my bike’s handlebars like a wannabe racer, misjudge a gravely turn at the bottom of the steep slope, and ride straight into a three foot high stone wall. Pop! That’s the sound I imagine he heard as my tube exploded, the impact too great for a thin strip of rubber inflated to 115 psi. My bike stopped moving; I continued forward, obscured from his view by the overgrown greenery on the side of the road that I plunged into.
We were in Poughkeepsie for the Discover Hudson Valley century ride. 100 miles through farm country and forest, among a few thousand riders like the one who’d pulled up next to us in the Days Inn parking lot, with a Lemond bicycle my dad admired. People who were busy, that Friday night, greasing their chains, inflating their tires and charging GPS trackers. People like my dad, who at that point in the afternoon, after saying goodbye to our neighbor, was doing the planning for two people. “Do you need bike shorts?” No. “How about an extra tube? Do you have one of those?” Yes. “Do you still have your repair kit?” Yes, I had it, and it was packed away, under my bike saddle, in the exact same place my dad had stuck it six months earlier. “I think I’ve got everything,” I said, absentmindedly.
We had been here before, had stayed in unassuming hotel rooms, with packed coolers and gear bags, for events in the past. On those trips, just as now, my dad packed the car. He made the sandwiches. He booked the hotel, checked the directions and scoped out the route. If there hadn’t been bikes on the back of the car this time around, I’d have thought we were at a lacrosse tournament, but even now, with the bikes, I felt as I had back in high school. Like a high schooler.
I was lucky. That was the extent of my reaction to my first ever bike accident. The hill turned from smooth pavement to gravel right at the bottom, and a sharp pull on my brakes would have sent me skidding across the road and torn up the left side of my body. Over the wall, about a foot or two to the right of where I’d landed, was a telephone pole I could have wrapped myself around. I stood there, flexing every muscle and bending every joint, expecting to find something out of sorts, but I had made a clean escape. I was fine.
Once he had caught up and determined that I wasn’t hurt, my dad set about fixing the bike. My extra tube came out of its resting place, as did a hand pump and repair kit. My sleek, black bike was flipped on its back, the wheels checked for structural damage. “A little bent, but should be fine to ride on.” He popped the wheel off as only someone familiar with roadside triage can do.
“Check the tire for any holes.” I checked the tire for holes. There were none. My dad slotted in a new tube and started to inflate it. I checked the pressure, which was stubbornly hovering around 100 psi. “I usually inflate it to 115.” I didn’t know much about bikes, but I knew harder tires made you go faster. I urged him on. “Just a little bit more.” He pumped a few more times and Bam! The replacement tube blew out. He reached down, and immediately found a hole. “Em…” He shook his head and reached into his own kit for a patch, which he now needed for the tube and the tire. I would be riding a $1,500 beater back to Poughkeepsie.
Cyclists are a strange crowd. Everyone needs a bike, obviously, but what is less apparent is the sheer number of options, from the brands (Specialized, Cannondale, Trek) to the types (racing, endurance, gravel), the materials (aluminum, carbon fiber, steel) and the cost ($500 to about the price of a Honda Accord). Extend that to gearsets, shifters, helmets, wheels, tires and doubtless twenty odd things I’m leaving out and you can imagine the web of options that novice riders find laid out before them. Presented with so many technical specifications, most cyclists seem to relish the challenge. As a runner, I’m used to the odd question about shoes, or maybe a word or two on nutrition, but for the most part the gear takes a backseat. Cyclists bring it to the forefront.
So there I stood, on the side of the road, thinking about my options had my dad not been there. I couldn’t change a tire. I had blown through my spare tube, even if I’d been able to figure it out. I had no context through which to judge a bent wheel, and had never used a patch before. I dialed the race director’s “emergency” number, in case the bike repair failed, but with every unanswered ring the truth became more obvious. I was hopeless.
A cyclist is fastidious because they have to be. On a run, you can always hobble home if you blow through the toe of your shoe or step on a nail. On a bike, you’re at the mercy of your machine. You’re twenty, thirty, maybe forty miles away from home in thin, skin tight clothing, with a phone, credit card and whatever you’ve managed to squeeze in your saddle bag or handlebar pack. To be prepared, you have to do the work or be ready to be stranded.
I am independent. That’s what I tell myself these days. I took the keys and drove us to Poughkeepsie, because I am every bit the man my dad is. I pay for the occasional breakfast together, or gas, because I can. I file my own taxes, select my own insurance and invest my savings as I see fit. I’ve reached the pinnacle of adulthood!
Then I crash into a metaphysical wall. Or, in this case, a very real one. “Slow down Emmett…” That is what my dad says as I try to slot the tire back onto the wheel. It’s also what he said when I tried revising a linear equation in the seventh grade. Or when I was making my list of colleges. Or when I was reviewing my first TurboTax submission. He’s been pumping the brakes on my impatience since the time I was born.
For the second half of our ride, we stayed together. I rode ahead on the uphills, confident that my wheel and crippled tire would hold out, and my Dad passed me on the downhills, as I gently tapped my brakes and kept my weight off my front wheel. By the time we pulled into the finish, sometime in the late afternoon, we had missed most of the fanfare and celebration. The finish line food was cold.
I’m a better athlete than my dad, as should be the case – I’m 33 years younger than him. But there’s more to a century ride than athleticism. My gear needed to hold up, and it didn’t. Back in Brooklyn, on Sunday, my dad brought me to a bike shop so I could get my wheel fixed. “Do you carry the Roubaix Pro tires?” he asked. Then he turned to me. “The tread on those will hold up much longer.”
