Bikes on Shoulder

03 July 2009

This title conjures up images of conquering bikers, hoisting their rides in many triumph-- an REI poster. I say manly because actually having that two wheeled hunk of pipes over your head would be a manly feat regardless of the gender of the hoister.

This title however, refers to the traffic signs posted along Maryland 4 warning drivers to share the road with bikers... like me.

I think the trip was Jason's idea, and from the start I wanted in. Of course with a couple of college kids running the show, things were a bit haphazardly thrown together, and we had a bit of a rocky start but at 7:30 we corralled our bikes behind the Barlow Center, said a prayer and headed out. Jason, Andrew, Maria and I-- a nice little chain of wheels pedaling through Downtown traffic. In the rain. Did I mention it was pouring? A veritable deluge right down on our parade. But this is normal riding for me, and I couldn't keep myself from laughing out loud as we ducked and tried to avoided the cars, trucks buses and over-sized puddles: the perfect start to our adventure.

And what an adventure it was: I learned to patch a flat and sleep on wet grass, I loitered in a gas station and then a casino, where I was carded for only the 2nd time in my life. We planed to sleep on the Chesapeake beach, but when we rolled into Chesapeake Beach City at 11 p.m., we just parked our bikes on the first bit of grass we found-- the Chesapeake Beach Veterans Memorial Park. Behind some privet bushes we found a nice place to sleep-- until the sprinklers came on at 4 a.m. That's when the loitering began.

We finally settled on the rocky shoreline of our Memorial Park to watch the sun rise over the bay. I remember seeing the brightness eating away at the horizon's darkness before I nodded off, hunched on a rock, hugging my knees under my fleece jacket.

Biking home on five hours of sleep was not as difficult as I thought it would be, and I was less sore than I expected, thank goodness. Along the way, we stopped for pictures beside a pastoral field and in front of the White House. Eighty miles after the start, we pulled into the Barlow center parking lot. I for one was sweaty, grimy and ready for a nap.

And so in love with biking.