D2R2: The Mystery Ride and the Implosion of Shad: Part V: The Denouement

Just like that I was alone on East Rd; a long dirt stretch heading back down and a long dirt stretch climbing upward, and all around me hardwood forest, a shaded canopy of calm. 

I walked and pushed for about half an hour. Occasionally one or more riders would come huffing and grinding up the road and pass me at a tortoise pace, head down, suffering. Some asked if I was alright. Others didn't know if they themselves were alright and no doubt, in their own minds, thought "I can barely get up this hill, I can't possibly provide any help or assistance to this poor bastard, whatever happened to him."

I didn't begrudge them. I'd had my own evil thoughts earlier in the day during the Catamount Forest Death March when we'd hooked up with a group of riders, one of whom, Cha Hank, Wing Nut knew. The group was unsure of where they were and Cha Hank saw Nut and exclaimed "Hey! it's Wing Nut! Hey man, you know these roads!"

Just ahead was a little three foot wooden bridge over a stream bed a foot or two below. Cha Hank directed his bike onto it to cross and somehow lost control and endo'd over his handlebars and off the bridge onto the rocks of the stream bed, head face first.

Everyone froze. It looked horrible. And my immediate mental reaction was "Oh fuck, this guy just wrecked himself and we're going to have to deal with it!"

Cha Hank picked himself up, a bit dazed but remarkably steady and uninjured. His bike was okay. None of us could believe it. It had looked awful! Later, I chastised myself for having such selfish thoughts first when encountering a fellow rider's distress.

So when people passed me by and ignored me, I understood and begrudged not a one of them. I didn't want to deal with me either.

Eventually, I pushed my bike passed a guy who was taking a break on the side of the road. We chatted and I explained what had happened.

"But you're stuck in the lowest gear, maybe you can ride" he said, pointing at my mangled derailleur.

"Well, no, see, the chain doesn't turn" I said and demonstrated. Except the chain DID turn. The lowest gear could be pedaled in. Yes, my rear wheel rubbed against the brake pad every time it passed, but it did revolve. I could pedal.

"Holy crap" I said, "you're right" and I got on and, gently, pedaled off. Pedaled up. And kept pedaling. Once, when it got crazy steep and gravelly loose, I got off and pushed, but remarkably I was able to limp to the top of East Rd and hook up with Forget Rd and arrive at Side Hill Farm. It was something of a miracle.

At Side Hill Farm at last

It was also 4:30, more than 90 minutes after Team Shad parted ways. Nut must be arriving at his car anytime, I thought.

I reclined on the grass by the picnic table in front of the Side Hill Farm barn & self-serve farm shop. I did some yoga poses and various stretches in the shade, unwinding, accepting the situation. It could be worse, I told myself, I could be stuck in the forest being devoured by mosquitoes. 

But I am not someone who waits well. I see time wasted as an affront. Not to mention that I require constant mental activity. I'm the type of person who never leaves the house without a crossword puzzle or book or notebook, something to occupy my head in the event I'm called upon to WAIT - for any reason in any situation for ANY length of time. I don't do Idle.

Then I met Jade. She'd stopped at the farm stand because she was in the area, because she knew the farmer who'd sold this farm to the yogurt makers, and because her dear friend who lived near by was dying of cancer. All this I learned after she approached me and asked about all the riders that she'd seen on the road today, what was going on.

I explained the D2R2 and she nodded. Trim, compact, probably around 50 years old, Jade had once biked quite a bit herself (she had a cyclist look about her), so she understood. She was exceedingly friendly and very shortly after we began talking, she offered to take me back to Deerfield (she was driving a vintage VW rabbit - I could have gotten my bike in).

I was uncertain. Surely Nut had reached Deerfield by now and would be racing to my rescue as we spoke.

"I'll text my buddy" I said "and if replies, then yes, I'll take you up on it. But if he's already en route ..." So I texted. And got no reply. But Jade waited. 10 minutes. 15. A half an hour. She'd just gotten back from 13 days in Ireland and England. I asked leading questions to keep her talking but eventually, reluctantly, she had to go. I thanked her profusely, grateful for her kindness and, with more than a pang of regret and second-guessing, watched her drive away.

Then the waiting really set in. 5:30 came. I had texted and called Nut several times with no response. It was absurd to think that it would take him two and half hours to get to Deerfield. I began to fear that he too had had a mechanical and was stranded. Cha!

So I called the only other friend I had in the area, the Mighty HTR in Shutesbury, and laid out the whole situation. I was stranded at a yogurt farm in Hawley, Wing Nut had gone missing, and I needed help. 

Without equivocating, HTR volunteered to come and get me. Saved! How long would it take to get to me? We decided an hour. 

An hour. I'd already been there an hour. 

Then I met Amy. She drove into the farm store parking lot in a golf cart with a young mixed-breed dog running alongside. Amy, it turned out, owned and operated the yogurt farm with her husband. She couldn't have been nicer and we talked for a good 15 minutes alongside the barn looking across one of the fields. I admitted to sitting in the chair alongside the barn and she replied that they often enjoy their morning coffee there. 

The view from the chair against the barn

Amy told me that if my friends didn't show up I should come and find her and we could figure something out. She asked if I needed water but I was all set. Oddly, I didn't feel hungry or thirsty. I had entered some weird state of calm resignation that was unusual for me.

The thing about waiting without any mental distraction is that it forces you to observe where you are, to evaluate what's in your line of sight and in your immediate surroundings. Around the side of the barn, I found the aforementioned old decrepit chair with a wire cage milk crate for a side table looking out on the expanse of field stretching away north and east. I relished it! It was like a secret that no one else knew about and though I felt a little sly and guilty sitting there, I was also seriously psyched to sit there and revel in the view, the space, the sky, and quiet.

Where I chilled

In front of the chair, in the shaggy growth of the barn berm, were plants with puffy seed globes, some fresh and green and new, and some old and dried out and ready to release their seeds. Lacking other mental stimulus, I began to peel apart the seed orbs and look closely at their composition. I felt like Ernst Haeckel* and imagined his studied vision of the minutiae of biology and botany. The finite exploration of completely foreign and irrelevant-to-me life forms washed over me in a wave of soul-searching humility. The field I gazed upon, the weird tiny black insects inside the seed pods I broke open, the kindness of strangers, the failing light of an August evening in the hills of western Mass filled me with appreciation and contemplative patience. Because there was nothing to be done about the situation, I could let go of everything I wanted to manage.

A little after 7:00 Wing Nut arrived, though not in his car but in his companion's, Ms. N's, with she at the wheel and he looking sheepish in the passenger seat. Before they could get out of the car and before we could exchange relieved cameraderie, HTR arrived. Two saviors! Relief and exasperation. Nut was as relieved to see me as I was to see him, plus he and Ms. N, knowing that I'd probably be hungry, had packed water, cheese, and crackers for me.

But what had happened to Wing Nut? In the long period of waiting, I'd imagined him with a broken bike trying to get a ride back to D2R2 HQ; I'd thought of him in an ER somewhere, victim of a hit and run, or victim of some lonely downhill crash, unfound; and none of us even knowing he was missing.

It all came out.

Wing Nut had indeed ridden as fast as he could back to Deerfield and it had taken longer than expected. When he'd arrived at his car he couldn't find his car keys. He'd lost them. And he realized that he'd lost them when we'd stopped at that convenience store/gas station after lunch. They must have fallen out when we'd hung out there drinking the ginger ale and refilling our water bottles. So he couldn't access his phone (my texts! my phone calls!) nor could he come and get me. So he had to ride home, another 30 minutes or more. And then enlist Ms Nut in the rescue effort. It all took time. Four hours, actually.

And HTR? A Giant of good will. OM AH HUM

We all had to go back to the D2R2 HQ because both Nut's and my car was there so I rode back with HTR - after driving all that way, at least he deserved to hear the day's story - while Nut & Ms. N lead the way back.

DNF. Did Not Finish. It was after 8:00 when we finally got back to the big meadow. Everything was winding down. 13 hours and a DNF. A bitter pill to swallow. The 13th iteration of the D2R2. The Mystery Ride had gotten the better of Team Shad. We'd done our best. Circumstance and weird karma had coalesced to transform this year's ride into something altogether unforeseen. The thing is, you can prepare all you want for every circumstance yet something you never imagined can arise at any moment. That's basically how Life is.

That's also how the D2R2 is, a journey unto itself. Every year is different because every rider brings to it their own karma and circumstance, and both change all the time. We like to think that we've got it all covered, every angle, that we're set for whatever life throws at us. By and large we are.

But the D2R2, filled as it is with random circumstance and the whimsy of weather and road conditions, suggests otherwise. 

Sometimes the fucknatty happens and there's just nothing to be done about it but roll with the punches. And hope to do it with the Niceness.

* Ernest Haeckel's observation of mycetozoa

Part I