I am the fastest biker in Kochi.
The time finally came to officially try out my new horse with KCTC. I came out with the bicycle a couple of Sundays ago, still not fully committed to buying it and fixing it up. Rain and an out-of-town bike race left me standing at the Bike Shop alone.
I visited the Bike Shop three or four times during the week to buy parts and ask advice on the used bike that I decided to buy. Rice Man helped me put it together and fixed the mistakes I had made trying to do things on my own.
Mrs. Bike Shop put in a special order for clip-in shoes for me (”Mac, your feet are impossibly huge . . .”), and they arrived at the Bike Shop Saturday morning. I had but one day to break them in before the big two-day trip to the Shikoku Karst on the Kochi-Ehime border.
Aside: I’m still not sure exactly what a karst is. Seems to be strangely-formed land with lots of rocks strewn about, and apparently the campus of UC Santa Cruz is a mini-karst.
The Bike Shops still hadn’t touched the bike other than the diagnostic exam that Mr. Bike Shop had done earlier, but they did hand me a screwdriver and a giant Allen wrench to install the new pedals and clips.
I tried the bike out with one shoe on and instantly noticed the difference of having my feet attached to the pedals. When I hopped on the old bike and pedaled, I was only applying force forward and down on the pedals, but with clip-ins, my legs were working throughout the entire circle. I put on both shoes and tried them out, and the bike nearly took off from underneath me!
I took on a couple of familiar hills and passes on the way to a favorite beach an hour away by the old bike. It took 45 minutes on the new one with about the same amount of effort. I loved how easy it was to maintain momentum, how fast I flew when I pedaled harder, and the more aerodynamic position of my body on the frame.
The members of KCTC broke into applause when I wheeled up the next morning, and exploded with laughter as I fell to the ground, forgetting to clip out and separate my feet from the pedals. I had a huge smile on my face and was waving at them like a dope, effectively erasing the WARNING: YOU ARE STILL CONNECTED TO THE VEHICLE message in my brain.
Imagine trying in earnest to get out of the car with your seat belt fastened. Or trying to stand up and walk after someone has tied your shoelaces together. It looks kind of like that.
About 25 of us departed for the Karst, taking the same national highway that we used to get to the Festival of Fools in February. We passed over into Ehime Prefecture and stopped at a riverside rest area about 45 miles out of Kochi City.
I had yet to break a sweat. We had climbed to about 2,000 feet at the highest point, but the slope seemed amazingly gentle on my new bike, which is about a third the weight of the old one. I spent most of the time toward the very front of the group and got to lead on most of the uphill sections.
It had become so easy to move; I felt loose and free, my body working so much efficiently than before. It was simply awesome, and it stunned me into silence that everyone else noticed.
“Mac, you’re so quiet today! Where’s the energy?”
“Yeah, what’d you do with all of that horsepower?”
“Look at him, it’s like he’s all grown up!”
In truth, I did feel like I had graduated, like I had moved onto something bigger, better, and more important. It just didn’t seem like the time to joke around or speak lightly because the experience was so striking and profound for me. I had never been farther away from base and I wasn’t even out of breath!
As we began the real climb on the next part of our trip, I wondered about my new limits. I thought that I could ride until the road ended somewhere, that I must be so fast that soon enough I’d have to join a racing team and turn pro.
I had considered the old challenges of Kochi to be the hardest of the hard and wondered what could possibly challenge me going forward.
I am the fastest biker in Kochi . . .
u r awesome!