Tragedy

So for now, this isn't a problem since it's too cold out to ride anyhow, but, I have a confession. I don't even own a bike. I had a bike, of course. It came to me by magical means. It was my first road bike- a simple black Schwinn from probably the 70's or 80's. About a week before it was lost to me, I spent a while on the internet trying to figure out just what year it was and where it had come from. But I needed more time, I needed someone to look at it for me. Now it's too late.

This bike, that was faster than any other bike I'd ever had, first belonged to my boyfriend's mother, Vaunie. She acquired it for $25 at a yard sale in the Berkshires (someone didn't know what they had). When I saw it on one of our summer visits to see Lyon's parents, my jaw dropped, and I was horrible at hiding the fact that this was exactly what I had been looking for. I fell in love with it. I took it for a tour up the drive and down the road a ways, and I felt so cool, like a real cyclist.

The little mountain bike I was using to get around served it's purpose, but it also made me feel like I was still in elementary school. This bike felt big under me, a little wobbly, but aerodynamic, and fast. It felt like a grown-up bike. After the weekend in the Berkshires, we parted ways, but there was a twinkle in Vaunie's eye as we left.

A few weeks later Vaunie and Bill came up to visit, ironically, for Lyon's birthday. Before they left, Vaunie told me she had something for me in the car. I gave her a look that said, "you don't have to do what I think you're going to do." As she rolled the Schwinn up the porch, she stopped next to my old mountain bike and said firmly, "we're switching bikes!" It was the best birthday of Lyon's that I had ever celebrated!

I got a good run out of my new Schwinn. I road it to work in the next town over, around town, and down the bike trail that connects a series of Western Mass towns. It stopped feeling wobbly as I got more comfortable, and only felt faster and more stable. Then, one fall weekend, about a year later, Lyon and I decided to take one of our weekend trips out to the Berkshires. We loaded the bikes on the car, and took off after dark, for Lyon's hometown-West Stockbridge.

I always used to be paranoid about driving around with bikes hanging off the bike rack, and was a frequent checker of my rear view mirror. But I guess since nothing ever happened, I loosened up, because during that drive out to the Berkshires, instead of pulling over when I felt like something was wrong in the back with the bikes, I just kept driving. And on the Massachusetts Turnpike, going 70 miles an hour, when I felt a weight suddenly lifted from the car, I knew what had happened. "The Bikes!" I screamed. Sure enough, when I looked in the mirror, there was nothing there, no handlebars or wheels spinning in the wind as there had been just seconds before. "What?!" said Lyon, confused but panicked. "The bikes fell off," I said as I threw on my blinker and pulled over to the shoulder to sit and wait in the pitch black for someone to collide at top speed with our fallen bikes.

As I came to a stop, I turned in my seat to look behind me, and saw that car after car was passing, unharmed. But I knew what was surely coming, and I instinctively called 9-1-1. "What's your emergency?" I was asked. "My bikes fell off on the Mass Pike and it's completely dark and I have no idea what's going to happen," I answered. "Is anyone hurt?" "No, not yet," I said, imagining the impending 5-car pileup, burning bodies, carnage-all because of me. I was told that I couldn't preemptively call 9-1-1, but she patched me through to highway patrol, and I told them our location and situation. As I hung up, I saw a car swerve, but then make it by. I couldn't see the bikes in the road, but it was evident that they were in the far left lane where we had been-the fast lane. Then, it happened.

Sparks came flying out from under the car that hit, and then began to drag, the bikes. At first, the car was aimed directly at us, clearly steering towards the shoulder to pull over as quickly as possible. I watched it come towards us in slow motion, and simply let it happen. At the last second, the driver seemed to see us there, and swerved to pull in front of us. As it rolled to a stop in the shoulder, Lyon jumped out and jogged towards to the vehicle.

The driver was young, on her way home from a late night waiting tables at a near-by restaurant. Her voice shook as we spoke, and her hands too as she wrote down her information. We asked her if she was okay, if her car was okay, if she needed a ride. As I spoke with her and gave her our insurance information, Lyon went around front and removed the mangled bikes, as well as the car's bumper.

She wouldn't take a ride, and didn't want to wait for the police to arrive. So we looked her and her vehicle over and then sent her on her way with promises to make things right. Luckily, Progressive paid for all of her damage.

Before getting back in our car, and heading on our way bike-less, and shaken up, we stood over our two bikes, fused together at the handlebars. There was no fixing them-nothing to be saved, the wheels were wack and the frames were warped. Just separating them would have proved impossible. We hung our heads in silence and walked back to the car, ready to head in the direction of the Berkshires, where I would have to tell Vauni the news.

So that was that. I don't like to talk about it, and I can't believe we didn't secure our bikes better. Long story short, I'm in the market for a new bike. One I can keep for a while, and one I can ride South, down the California coast.