On Your Left!

 By Jeanne Winstead

Benny and I finally got a new bicycle this spring (for my birthday) - a Trek mountain bike. We thought it would be good for gravel roads, which we have aplenty, and it was. Then Mom signed us up for the annual Wabash River Centennial bike ride. Yes, there actually is a hundred mile route, which goes from Lafayette all the way through Pine Village and Williamsport (and back) following the Wabash River. But we signed up for the thirty-five (yes, 3 and 5) mile ride. So one early Sunday morning in August, Mom, Aunt Claudine, and Benny and I rendezvoused at historic Fort Ouiatenon off South River Road, a commemorative site for French and Indian trading activity in the 1700's.

The Cycling Club sponsoring the event handed out survival kits and "power bars." I had brought along chocolate bars (bad choice in August, but I don't have time to put much thought into these things), Mom packed juice and snacks for us, and off we went. August nights had been cool, so I needed a sweatshirt starting out. The route went along South River Road, across Granville Bridge to West Point on State Road 25 and then down a country road back across the river to the tiny town of Independence where the biking club provided refreshments and classical music in a tiny park just out of town. They called it a "sag stop."

It was very scenic along the Wabash. The weather was clear and sunny. All that aside, I had a tough time keeping up for some reason. It probably didn't help that we'd gotten roped into a cruise on Lake Schaefer that same weekend and hadn't gotten home till midnight. And that I had just come off my second week at a new job. But whatever the reason, people kept whizzing by me. I got so sick of being bombarded with "On your left!"'s that I began having nasty thoughts like, "Yeah, well, I didn't really expect you to be passing through the cornfield on my right."

People had all sorts of fancy and unusual (expensive) bikes at this affair. Then there was this one guy who was paraplegic. He was operating a rig with his arms, like rowing a boat, sort of. He went by me and eventually caught up with Aunt Claudine to whom he said, "That gal back there on that mountain bike was the only person I've passed on this ride."

Mostly I blame it on the three hundred-dollar mountain bike. It was never meant for those smooth, paved, level roads.

To top it off, Benny was noble and rode the old Schwinn we'd picked up many years ago at Purdue's salvage warehouse on North 9^th Street (for ten dollars). It only has one speed. My bike has 26 speeds. He passed me, naturally. I did get a laugh though, one time when he was behind me. Two big, burly professional looking bikers with fancy clothes and expensive gear whizzed by us. Then one turned to the other and said in disbelief, "No gears?" These same two fellows told Benny they were glad to see he made it when we arrived back at the Fort. I think they were in awe of him.

In spite of my difficulties, I hung in there to the end. Whenever I would round a corner, there would be my seventy-two year old mother patiently waiting for me to catch up. Hah! At least she got chances to rest. My only rule of thumb was, "If I can't ride up it any faster than I can walk up it, then what's the point?"

After all, walking is exercise too.

Needless to say, we all felt a real sense of accomplishment when we finally pulled back into the Fort. We proudly presented our tokens for frozen custard. Aunt Claudine said, "I want to buy a T-shirt to prove I actually did this," so we all did.

Then we went to MCL cafeteria and ate a big Sunday dinner!