The thrill of Victor and the agony of de feet

Let me start by saying I have never been as proud of a post title as I am of this one. As you will see its pure genius. An interesting aside about my, we'll call it, "writing" style. I tend to write the title of the post and then everything comes from there.

This is anti-7th-grade-english where we were taught to outline the story and then outline the paragraph and then, once you woke up, fill in the blanks with actual sentences. I'm sure to many of you, this comes as no surprise. Anyway, back to the story.

I went on a bike ride yesterday. OK, "bike ride" is an understatement. This was something like a cross between "National Lampoon's European Vacation" and "Deliverence". We set out on a 80+ mile trek. There were five of us. Myself, who I consider to be an above averge but not spectacular rider, another who is just as strong (but 30lbs ligher, the bastard), a third who is almost there but could stand to train a little more, and two guys who like to ride but for one reason or another have issues keeping up. One of which is Victor.

Victor is a great guy. He's fun to work with, great to be around, and I can only describe him as Tony Robbins on crystal meth. He is a 100%, full-time, grade-A optimist. The kind of guy that can find the silver lining in nuclear war. Again, I digress.

I titled the ride "The first anual 'Oh my god, the horror, the agony' bike ride" in order to scare the less capable riders away. This did not work. This sounds like a snobbish statement. And, truth be told, it is. When going on a 6-hour bike ride to the middle of nowhere, you want to be careful who you choose. Its like the "who would you have on a deserted island?" question. No one ever picks Gilligan. You want The Professor.

After about 2 hours of riding Vic is tired. We haven't even gotten to the hard part yet. After 3 hours he's hurting. Then we start climbing. Let me say that I have a new disrespect for our civil engineers. We've sent men to the moon but we can't figure out how to get up and over a mountain without a series of switchbacks that look more like more like ladders than ramps. After 45 minutes of climbing straight up we reach the top. We meaning myself and the other strong rider. After about 10 minutes, the 3rd guy shows up. Another 10 minutes a fourth. No sign of Vic.

Here's where I have my first mini-panic. We're almost out of water and we have 3 more hours to go. The top of this mountain has what looks like a retirement villiage on it. I've somehow got it in my head that there might be "something" in the water. I do my best not to drink it for fear of some parasite or bacteria.

We head down the mountain and there is Vic on his cell phone. He's calling someone to come pick him up. We are at least 43 miles from East Egypt and he's giving up. Bad news. We convince hime to go to the next stop and then its all down hill.

Another hour of riding and we get to the next stop and there's no Vic. We wait. No Vic. We see three riders pass us and ask them if they passed another rider. No. We ride back and we hear someone yell at us from the side of the road. Vic is sitting on the porch of a U-Haul rental/taxidermy/country store with a guy who has, at most, 18 teeth. He can't go on. He won't go on. He's calling his wife to come get him. We tell him we'll go slow and that in another 11 miles its all down hill. he won't budge. Vic is broken.

Reluctantly we leave him with Bubba and as we ride away I swear I can hear banjo music and squealing pig noises... Here's where the wierd part kicks in. For the next hour I'm anxious. I'm worried about bee stings, fire ants, flat tires, how far we are from civilization, how long its taking to get home, my blood pressure, you name it, I'm freaking out about it. Vic started an anxiety storm.

For two hours we ride . All the while worried aboout Vic. He won't answer his phone (or can't) and hasn't called and left us a message to say he was picked up. Others are angry, I'm anxious. Not about Vic, but about me.

Its now Sunday night and I still haven't heard from Vic (I don't have his phone number so I sent him an email). I assume I'd get a call if he was missing. I'm still anxious.

We rode a total of 85 miles. Arriving back at our cars almost 7.5 hours after we left. This is a new personal best for me. My legs hurt, my feet hurt, I think my pancrease even hurts.

I'm not sure why being worried about Vic caused so much anxiety elsewhere. It does seem like there are triggers but its usually things like work or family that make me go off on a panic bender.

I'm sure I'll hear from Vic tomorrow and we'll all laugh. Or punch him. I haven't decided.