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Return Of The Native — Part 2

By Joe Kurmaskie

The Prodigal Son Returns on Carbon Fiber

I decided to return to the scene of the crime. I grew up riding a bicycle in Florida in the 1970s and know beyond a doubt that I’m lucky to be alive, lucky in the way people are who attended Woodstock, rushed for California gold, marched on Selma or laid the country’s first railroad tracks. To be inside something as it’s becoming, something organic and ad hoc, dangerous and beautiful ... It made me fast, hard and confident, but only because I knew no other way. I had to ride. I needed it, even if I had to steal it from a deep place.

Now, twenty years later, I greet the roads I once tore up and raced around with both fear and longing. I have plenty to live for and lose these days, and while some of the blacktop miles have bike lanes, these roads carry more traffic, more distractions ... and if my reactions aren’t as quick as they were when I was 20, this could be a short-lived reunion.

I called up my old friend Greg, who I worked with for a while in the Everglades instructing at-risk youth at a place called Last Chance Ranch. I was a kid telling other kids how to live. It was slightly ridiculous and rather stressful work. Three of us would push out the jive every Friday by cycling from Venus, Florida, to Fort Myers in one mad dash 100-mile ride. When the wind got behind us and we took turns in front, it was the closest to heaven I’d ever get. When an afternoon squall line would roll in off the gulf it was hell on earth. Not only could we see the lightning crashing around us, we could smell the ozone, all the while knowing we were the tallest points for miles. We’d lay down in a culvert by the side of the road, wait for the worst of it to pass over, screaming in terror and primal release until we ran out of breath, fear, or one of us gave the “all clear” and asked where we wanted to pig out at ride’s end.

Good times, if you lived.

Greg made the reunion ride but Steve, the third amigo in those Friday fun-house sprints, begged off. More to the point, he told us we were nuts. When pressed, he confessed he hadn’t been on a bike in fifteen years. Greg brought his twenty-year-old son.

The blacktop was no longer new, smooth and fresh. Cracks and divots and dips where the soft sand underneath had given way ruled the day. Grass and road debris littered the edges. We made it more of a tour ride than a training sprint. No rain this time to put us in the ditch, which was fortunate because at our slower pace we spotted more than a few healthy sized ‘gators sunning themselves just off the blacktop. Maybe they’d been there twenty years ago, but between the lightning and the primal screams I hadn’t noticed. We’d heard of a new hazard to cyclists on this route, pythons. They’re taking over the Glades according to a park ranger we chatted with. I cracked a joke about hoping to bunny hop one if we found it stretched across our path. He looked at me the way one might a frat boy considering some Darwin award stunt involving garage roofs, hot tubs and powerlines.

When we reached the beach in Naples, I felt more than a hint of cramping in my quads. It was foolish of him, but Greg kept dousing his son with tales of the glory days of this ride, talking up our average speed and the way we’d kick it into overdrive for the final 25 miles to the shore. When that young buck went rabbit on us, I only had a second to see what shone in Greg’s eyes, and instantly had to fall off the back or grab onto the draft. I dropped in behind my old friend and we took up the task of running down the breakaway.

Whether we caught him or not is beside the point because for a few hard fought, glorious miles we managed to slip back two decades, and ride wheel to wheel and stroke for stroke with our former selves.

Next month: the conclusion of Return Of The Native

Joe Kurmaskie rides a bike for the joy of it. His latest book, “You Might Be a Cyclist” is now available. For more information go to www.metalcowboy.com or follow Joe’s adventure at www.arkel.ca.