CYCLES: CHAPTER 5- WHERE THE SIDESTREET ENDS (the Second longer, bigger, and better draft)

CYCLES CHAPTER 5: Where the Sidestreet Ends

Matt did most of the talking at Seattle Super Cycles because it was his bicycle. In fact, he did all the talking. I walked around the small, cramped, corner store pretending to look at bicycles and other stuff you could by for your adventures. After giving everything the once over, there wasn’t that much more for me to do to keep myself busy so I gave them the twice over.

The twice over attracted the attention of a floor associate who asked, “Anything I can help you with?”

The floor associate wore a name tag that read “Rob.” I thought about Tim from Sam’s Cycles, he didn’t wear a name tag. This thought led to a dread of ever wearing a name tag again, and how we’ve become a name tag nation. I believed them to be a degrading invention. It’s not easy to be happy when the concept of name tags makes you angry.

If you want someone to know your name, you tell them or answer them when they ask. Why must employees be subjected to pinning it to their chest? It smelled like the man trying to keep the young, under achieving, suburban, service industry man down!

The name tag created more anonymity and disconnection than anything else. I say, if you’re too afraid to ask the name of of the guy (or woman) trying to help you and too afraid to ask again when you forget, you don’t deserve to buy a can opener or Ford Aerostar from him. I mean, Geez! What’s wrong with the world!

My blood boiled in the less than a second it took to read his tag, look him straight in the eye and calmly say, “No. Thanks, I’m just looking.” I kept the rest to myself. The suburban revolution would have to wait. For now, I would remain polite and near invisible.

“Cool. Let me know if you have any questions.” Said Rob. He smiled a genuine smile an walked off.

Matt walked over to me. He’d been talking with the bike mechanic. “It’s gonna take at least a week. Three to five days to get the hub delivered, then one to two days to build the wheel.” He smiled as if indicating that it sucked, but it didn’t totally suck.

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Humph..”

“Yep.”

“At least we’re not in the middle of nowhere.” I said.

Matt nodded. “Yeah, woulda sucked if we were halfway up a mountain.”

“How much is it gonna cost?” I asked. It was Matt’s bike, but we were on a trip, sharing the bike, so I didn’t know if I’d be chipping in. Was I willing to contribute? Yes. Did I want to? ….Uhm. Do I have to answer that?

Matt checked out the bicycle in front of us as he spoke. “The dude said, with labor, I’m looking at a hundred to a hundred-thirty.” Matt folded the customer ticket and stuck it in his pocket.

“Damn. ...For one part?” I said.

“And the labor to build the wheel. They have to put every damn spoke in its place by hand.”

I nodded, raised my eyebrows, and tightened my lips.

“Don’t worry, Marflake. It’s my bike. I’m paying.”

“Yeah, I know. I mean, I’d-“

“Don’t worry about it.” Matt said dismissively. “It’s my bike. Relax, you don’t have to pay.”

“I know. But just- Cool, I’m glad..” I said, conceding. I was a cheap S.O.B. I had no money, but neither did Matt, but like he said, it wasn’t my bike.

Matt changed the subject and said, “I should get Cannondale to pay for it.”

“Totally!” I said, surprised I hadn’t thought of that. It was their fault. We’d barely ridden the bike and it was supposedly the best hub in the world.

“So you want to go see the space needle?” Matt asked changing his tone and the subject again.

We went to the Space Needle but didn’t go up to the top. It was too rich for our blood. We were on a tight budget that included only allocations for food and shelter. Therefore we spent a week in Seattle trying not to spend money.

The Teepee campground had bicycles we could ride for free around the island. We liked free, so we rode the bikes. We pedaled the crappy, single-gear bikes to the one beach on Vashon Island. There was no one there, it was boring, rocky, and windy. W stayed a few miinutes, then pedaled back to the Teepees.

Most days, we took the ferry and caught the bus to downtown. Lucky for us, the Seattle public transportation system was running a promotion that allowed riders to ride all day for fifty cents. We got our fifty cents worth and more. We spent a lot of time at the wharf, it was a tourist area with a lot of restaurants and fish markets. We didn’t buy fish and we didn’t eat in the restaurants. However, one day I splurged and tried an expensive cup of coffee from this place I’d heard about. It was called Starbucks. Seattle was supposed to have excellent coffee shops. I didn’t know what excellent coffee tasted like, so I thought it was horrible. I had my doubts as to whether this Starbucks chain was going to make it.

On the evening of the fifth day, Matt called Seattle Super Cycles; the wheel was ready. We picked it up on the sixth day, and on the seventh day we did not rest, we rode. We loaded up the bike, tied the duct tape to the top of the gear on the rear rack and headed out once again.

Just as we had planned on our first attempt, we took the ferry to the mainland and headed off toward the wharf downtown. It was there that we’d catch a ferry to Vancouver Island, ride up the island, camp for the night, and take the Ferry into Horseshoe Bay canada the following morning. From there we’d ride to Vancouver, camp for the night, then cross back into the States and head toward our first mountain range, the Cascades. I was going to ride a bicycle over a mountain- a real mountain!

We got about halfway there when our maps brought us to an overpass. The road we were on seemed to come to a dead end up ahead.

Matt called back to me from the front of the bike, the captain’s position. “Clip out Marflake. We’re stopping.”

I unclipped my feet from the pedals and we came to a rare, graceful stop just short of the overpass.

Matt pulled the map from the clear plastic sleeve of the handlebar bag. He examined the map, placed his finger on a point and traced back and forth. He looked up from the map and around our surroundings. He looked at me. After a pause, he conceded, “I don’t know where the hell we’re supposed to go.” He smiled and let out a little laugh.

“Well, what does the map say?” I asked. I unclipped my helmet strap and wiped sweat from my brow. My arm was sweaty so my forehead sweat and arm sweat merely intermingled. I picked up the edge of my shirt to wipe my forehead.

“Well...” Matt held the map up so I could look at it as well, “It says here that we turn left right after this overpass and the road continues on.” Matt looked at me and then forward toward the dead end and the highway on ramp.

I looked where he was looking. A semi tractor-trailer roared over the busy overpass, then cars, and more eighteen wheelers. I reached my hand out toward the map. He held it closer to me. He was right, it looked as though it was tellling us to get on the highway. We’d bought these Adventure Cycling maps to give us bike routes, bikes weren’t allowed on highways and I had no interest in trying it.

“What the fuck?” I said. Looking up at the highway again. I looked further down the highway, it looked to be some kind of hairy interchange area. “That can’t be right.”

Matt stared at the highway, considering our options, he looked at me. “Well, what do you want to do?”

“Are we sure that’s a dead end up there.” I asked.

Matt looked beyond the overpass. “Well, that sign up there says no outlet.”

I didn’t have any ideas. I’d been relying on Matt to mind the maps and I knew that I could’ve looked at it for another ten minutes and not have come up with a better option. I said, “Isn’t it illegal to ride on the highway?”

“Far as I know. Not too smart either.” He looked at me, “Especially in this interchange area.” His eyes suddenly focused far behind me. “Look at this dude...”

I looked back. A cyclists was riding toward us. He was about an eighth of a mile away. We watched him get closer.

“Maybe he knows the way.” I said. There was little confidence in my voice.

“Dude’s dressed in all red...” Matt said.

“Uh-huh.”

“You don’t think it’s- .....?” Matt said, trailing off.

“I don’t know.” My curiousity was peaking. It couldn’t be, that would be weird.

He rolled up on us, close enough to recognize. He had a red helmet, red shirt, red shorts, and red beard.”

Yeah, it was weird.

“Holy shit...!” I looked at Matt.

Matt smiled in disbelief. “It’s fuckin’ Big Red.”

He was upon us. He stopped along side us and took a good look at us. We stared at him, he stared at us.

“What’s up, Big Red.” Matt said, feigning a nonchalant demeanor.

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For new readers, I’m posting drafts of chapters of a book I’m writing as I write it, you get to see the warts and all before it’s all done up for a night on the town.

This was a rough section to get through. I felt bored with it, getting from here to there. If the author is bored with his own writing it doesn’t bode well for the reader. I tried to summarize and pick out only the necessary and entertaining.

And somebody help me out on the punctuation on this Sentence(s). - “After giving everything the once over, there wasn’t that much more for me to do to keep myself busy so I gave them the twice over.”