A usual wake up and breakfast. The morning was nice and warm, a good change from waking up freezing, but as I would find out, only led to a very hot and sweat-soaking ride.
The first 20 miles or so, were pretty easy. I cruised through them in no time. It felt like a good day, little did I know. The term even played a game to get us through the century ride, called sharks and minnows. Basically, the last paceline and sweeps start off as sharks and everyone else is minnows. When the sharks catch up to the next paceline, then that next paceline turn into sharks and so on, until everyone is sharks. To distinguish between sharks and minnows, the sharks put chain grease on their face, it got a little ridiculous but it was pretty funny.One guy had a fu-manchu and have may have sacred a few little children along the way.
At the 20 mile mark, their was too much construction on the road to be deemed safe to bike ride, so the project manager made an executive decision to rack ever one onto the vans, drive past the construction zone into a safe area to return to biking. Sounds like a good idea. Only problem was that this was just the beginning of a complete disaster.
We unracked and I started biking again. It took roughly an hour to rack and unrack, so my legs were pretty tense by the time we started riding again.
We also met another group of cyclists, who were cycling for aids victims. There was only 2 of them cycling, and since their support van pretty much ditched them, we decided to rack them and bring them across the construction zone. Although this seems like a the right decision, it was the not safe, and more importantly, the not the right thing to do in this situation. Once I started biking again, I felt awful. I was way too tense, the sun was out, and boy, was it hot and humid. The next 50 miles to lunch were absolutely miserable. I managed to get through it all, some how. We had the usual crew stop lunch, consisting of a turkey cheddar sandwich (two meats, one cheese), a handful of chips, an apple, and two small cookies.
Getting back onto the bike is always rough after lunch, but given the circumstances, was really tough today. The weather made a turn for the worse appearing hot and muggy. Throw in some difficult terrain including steep hills, and for the first time, it was really tempting to call it quits. I kept pedaling but a headache to form. WIth constant headwinds and bike noises, the headache started to grow to considerable pain. By the end of the ride, I was really thankful that it was over, and really felt accomplished. I did feel bad that I didn't ride those 10 miles early on (which was ll downhill and thus, would be really easy) which puts me a total of roughly 30 miles that I couldn't ride, either because of bike issues or safety. I am proud of the fact that I road every mile I possible could, which totals over 750 miles.
The scenery progressed worse and worse as the ride continued. At one point, all the shrubs and bushes looked gray and dead, straight out of the "bad guy's" hangout from any common fairy tale. It was pretty depressing. Little did I know...
Once we arrived, the misery didn't end, unfortunately. I looked at the table inside gym (which was surprisingly a high school gym considering the massive size of the "arena") and there was my backpack complete, for lack of a better word, dissected. The computer was sitting on the top of the bag, and it was a really sore site. Now I don't want to sound materialistic, but my computer means the world to me, I have so much on there: pictures, movies, school notes, engineering programs, expensive engineering programs, it goes without saying that it was priceless in my eyes. To see it in such a destroyed state like that felt worst than a nightmare. I really couldn't believe my eyes. Why me? Granted, at least I was safe, at least I didn't break a leg during today's ride, but why my computer? I even managed to put Leopard OS dual booting it with Windows XP...not a simple task. After turning it on, I figured that i worked but it's screen was completely cracked and unusable, and considering that its a tablet computer, the screen is the most expensive and important part of the computer. Along with my computer, my cellphone charger was smashed into multiple pieces, and my backpack completely ripped up with the zippers absolutely useless.
At that point, I decided the best plan of action was to have a cool head, and to make sure I figure everything out, and get all the details to the situation. After speaking with the project manager, I attached it to an external monitor, found in the janitors closet. What really irritated me, as I was still trying to figure everything out, the project manager, Drayton, ditched the situation and left to go see a movie (Toy Story 3, I hope it was great) when I was in complete shambles. I literally felt ditched. It was a complete slap in the face...that we flat out didn't care. Trying to figure out how this happened, I stated talking to everyone i could. I guess the crew chief, Trevor, moved my bag from inside the van to on top of the van during 10 mile stretched we were racked. He didn't make sure it was properly secured a tarp and bungee cords. The end result being that it fell from the van...when it was going downhill...probably at 50 mph. From what I was told, it was just my bag and another kids bag, both fell out, mind being in much worst condition with the backpack ripping open and the computer laying out completely vulnerable on the road. When they figured out that they were missing two bags (which probably happened 20 minutes after falling), they turned around and looked for them...at that point, I was "lucky" that
it was still there. After talking to a few other cyclists, I found out that no one hand any idea what happened to me, and my situation, they were completely left in the dark. Again, I was pretty proud of how I handled the situation...with a very cool head. After a suggestion from another cyclists, I wrote down all my thoughts, finalized it, and presented it to Trevor and the project manager, Drayton. Basically, they told me, that I "was responsible for my personal possessions," implying that it was my fault. After thinking it through, I still think the whole situation, I decided that the whole situation was unjust and completely unfair. Had I moved my bag to the top of the van, it would be a a completely different story. In fact, I would feel completely responsible for the all the damages to the computer. However, the truth of the matter is that I didn't even know they moved my backpack, which I feel was a complete breach of my personal property. They were completely wrong in my opinion to move my personal items without my consent. Like I said earlier, I was pretty irritated that Drayton basically ditched the situation by seeing a movie. Regardless, I kept a cool head, pulled him aside, and spoke to him about my feelings about the situation. I emphasized that there was no reason to rush the situation. There was no rack point, all we had to get there by 5 or 6 pm, and we would be fine. Another thing that irritated me was that I had to go find Trevor and Drayton. Had I been in their shoes, I would have made sure to apologize immediately and explain every detail of what happened. When I spoke to Drayton, he kept on mentioning that "space was an issue." If space was an issue, why did he rack those Face Aids cyclists, or since time wasn't an issue, why didn't we make multiple trips? It basically felt like I was told, life is not fair...get use to it. False, that is not an acceptable answer for what happened.To walk things off, I walked to a 7-eleven and picked up a muscle milk, came back to the gym, did my daily pushups (184 for today), which really helped burn off a little frustration. I pulled Drayton aside again and asked him to reconsider not telling the rest of the team. As I laid down on my tiny sleeping pad, all I could think about was how horrible this day was. But I'm no quitter. I bet there are going to be worst days that fate has in store for me. But tomorrow is a whole new day...hopefully its better and I wake up from this nightmare.
No comments:
Post a Comment