The Bixby Canyon Bridge

I recently bought the new Death Cab for Cutie CD; Narrow Stairs. It has not left me disappointed. The first track is titled, “The Bixby Canyon Bridge.”

The song pays respects to a dead friend while realizing that while the place is the scene of death, it is for most, a blink of the eye while travelling through every day life. At least that’s how I interpret it in 32 words.

At 16 I went on a church bike trip from San Jose to Disneyland. The trip was a stage for me as I was a social wall flower. On the bike though, I was comfortable. Cycling was my escape and bike racing was a way to vent my adolescent angst. I was good at riding a bicycle at a time when everything else in life seemed difficult.

I crossed the Bixby Bridge with Lorinda, a well matured blond who that season was my single thought while doing intervals or climbing hills as hard as I could when my mouth tasted metallic like blood and the legs burned like hot irons.

Amazed that I was totally comfortable next to her, we rode together for miles. She laughed at my jokes and shared her thoughts. My hands rested lightly on the hoods, legs spun smoothly, loosely. That moment was easy. Off the bike, in contrast, I stared at my feet, tripped over my words or avoided her all together. As we crossed the Bixby Bridge, everything was right in my world.

Unfortunately, just after the bridge, my eyes firmly set on her, we crested one of the many peaks along the coastal highway. I failed to see the giant boulder in the road and hit it straight on, collapsing my front wheel into a heart shaped pile of aluminum.

A few years later, Chris and I did an inland trip to Paso Robles and back up the coast. Riding cyclocross bikes fitted with racks and not nearly low enough gearing, we spent 3 days trying to drop each other with loaded packs while he extolled the virtues of college life.

Both of us thought the other brought a can opener. We ate canned soup and tuna opened with rocks our first night. Crossing the Bixby Bridge from the south on that trip I enjoyed the approach, the vista and the moment for what it was. The wind chilled my sun burnt skin. I thought 19 would last for much longer than it did.

So it was without forethought, after reading Henry Miller and the Beat poets and having developed a respect for the Big Sur that I would finally accept the loss of my cousin Keith, and mourn the tragedy of his brother Kevin during a 72 hour bender at Pfeiffer State Park. The power of nature on the Big Sur was the prologue to the hardest block of my life. I was powerless as even the fog engulfed me and I shivered in front of a camp fire I could barely see.

For the past 3 years the Tour of California has crossed the Bixby Bridge in rightly the harshest stage of the race. The bridge is a must-take postcard shot for the photogs. One might look at those pictures and see the race as a bridge between Euro Pro Cycling and the growing domestic Pro scene. Mostly, the Bixby Bridge reminds me of painful blisters that callus sensation-less so as to continue crossing the chasms that otherwise seem uncrossable.

Hormones or Loud and Proud?

The Mrs. seems to think that no one reads the comments on the blog posts. She may very well think that no one reads the posts either. She might be right on both counts. Either way, she e-mailed me today to make a clarification. Being 37 weeks pregnant she seems to have alot to say and say loudly or emotionally so at first I took her statememt with a grain of salt until she backed it up in person as how she truly feels. I just don't know what to think.

"I would appreciate it if you would amend your blog - I actually AM into the show Walker Texas Ranger and was royally pissed when we lost the Hallmark Channel and I could no longer watch it each night as I mentally gave a round house kick to my work day. I am not ashamed of it; am quite proud of it actually, and would like your readers to know. =)"

At least she put it out there that we no longer have the Hallmark Channel.

I love you too, A.

A Week

It's been a big week. Last Saturday, Markie took me to a crit in No-Po. Tuesday, Kent and I went and saw the new Indiana Jones movie. Save your money. Better was getting to see some Architecture projects he's eye-ball deep into while sipping a tall boy of the champagne of beers. A and I completed our birthing class on Wednesday. Saturday was another class called "Newborn care." We (mostly A) got the nod to have a baby.

Sunday A had a baby shower and John, Eli and I hung out. Eli showed me his mad 1 year old skills.





21 months ago, when Cadillac Jack broke my pelvis I was gifted the complete Chuck Norris movie catalog. When A had her surgery last summer, she was gifted the first season of Walker Texas Ranger. Dave the P/T has me working out on a Total Gym as well. Yesterday, the Newmanugget was given this t-shirt. The thing is, we really aren't that big of Chuck Norris fans. But the T is awesome all the same.



Okay, I may have, in the past, submitted my very own haiku to www.chucknorrisfacts.com but really, I'm not that into him.

How much does thou suck? Let me count the waves!

Last month the MD got on my case about needing to really move the arm all the time because range of motion won’t come back on its own. I took this as an insult as I have been extending the elbow every day and even in the middle of the night while wide awake. Dave the P/T reefs on it 2x a week, taking me to the edge of puking as I lay on the table, arching my back and gritting teeth while he straightens the arm as far as it can go. We do this routine for about an hour after some pool work. Jim or Peggy who each take turns driving me to therapy are at the same time napping in the lobby.

So last week I went back to the MD, got fresh x-rays and had some face time. He was impressed with the extension to 10-degrees and said, “I didn’t think it would ever get that good. You might get close to 100% out of it.”

My range of motion answered his next question as to why I go through the Vicodin like Pez. That being said, I’ve started to cut back on the pain pills. I hurt more but also am more mobile and need the reminder of when to say when.

The good news continued on with the hip improving as well. The MD let me out of the wheelchair and onto crutches. This means I can get down to the basement and kill some of the day by doing laundry. I’m that bored. My first day on the crutches was the day A and I go to birthing class. The class is in the basement of the hospital and of course, as the session wraps up the fire alarm goes off and I have to crutch-it up two floors of stairs to get to the parking garage.

No wheelchair means a step up in rehab. Dave the P/T gave me enough work to do on my own to give some structure to my days beyond watching re-runs of Living Lohan. At the moment I do leg extensions and curls for the quad and hamstring at a whopping 7 lbs. I do arm curls and extensions with a 3 lb dumbbell that looks like a paper weight. And it hurts. My guns look like water pistols.

Today I started swimming laps at the community center pool. I did ¼ mile, 18 lengths, in 25 minutes. No lie. I think a dead body can float in the current faster than that. I am to swimming what tube socks, cut off jeans and a Schwinn Varsity are to cycling. If there was a 7-Eleven at either end of the pool I would have gotten out and bought some Little Debbie snacks or Fig Neutons to fight the bonk and get me back to the other end of the pool. Instead I soldiered on, doing my own free-style stroke which looked remarkably similar to a hurricane.

The real swimmers may have wondered if I was having a seizure. When I got out of the pool I cleared things up with my man-boobs and pasty belly hanging over the locker key tied to the waist of my swim trunks. In my mind, getting out of the pool and reaching for my 4-footed cane was a man-candy version of Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Fortunately there are enough mirrors in the locker room to keep me grounded in reality.

Graced

In July 1985, during my first full year of bike racing as likely the smallest and worst junior in the history of the world, I followed the CBS sports broadcast of the Tour de France each weekend, with unwavering anticipation and dedication. During the sprint into St. Etienne, Phil Anderson pinched Bernard Hinault into the crowd barriers. The Badger, as the French called him, fell spectacularly and broke his nose. Through the following mountain stages, Hinault etched forever into my conscience, the resolve to fight on as he continued with a pair of black eyes to his 5th Tour victory in Paris.

Beyond my comprehension at the time and more importantly was the issue of Hinault’s rivalry with American teammate Greg LeMond and the subsequent foundation of a battle royale to be played out in full the following year. As an impressionable child in utter awe of what I was watching on TV, all I took away was that Bernard Hinault was a bad-ass bike racer.

A month later, armed with a Kodak instamatic camera and Duran-Duran hair, I jumped into the Badger’s face to get this shot in Sacramento during the Coors Classic. Hinault smiled at me. Not in a posed, fake-hug instead of an autograph way, but in a true candid moment. He could have just as easily jumped off his bike and beat the Hell out of me as he did to picketing workers blockading the Paris –Nice race the previous year. Instead he smiled at me. As he maneuvered past, he patted me on the head and mumbled something in French then disappeared. For all I know he could have said I was an annoying little runt. It didn’t matter. One of the greatest champions in the world graced me with his presence like a back alley pope.

Off to the side, watching me resolute, was Charley Berard a red-headed career domestique for the Badger. Once Hinault left, the crowd simmered down and Berard, still standing there against the barriers, nodded at me and said, “Someday, no?” then made a fist and touched it to his chest twice. I didn’t understand the hand motion until years later when I was in France and the old men at the start of the races would make the same fist, punch it twice to their heart and smile then say, “Today, no?”

That “Today” never happened for me. There were a pile of hopes for a someday, close calls with destiny that made the closer I got to accomplishing the dream seem further and further away. Now, years passed, those yesterdays are the poignant lessons of an ambitious youth. A youth where the best day, the day that got me through seasons of worst days, was the day the Badger smiled at me.