with nimz recovering from a week-long NOAA motorboat training course I partook in a early morning bicycle adventure with leroy. as a married father living in the suburbs, leroy almost never has time to ride his many glamorous track bicycles. in an odd occurrence leroy actually spent an evening in town.
so we met up at 5:30 in the morning on saturday - while sensible people laid resting - to ride our bicycles. it was a windy morning with spring rains and I laughed heartily as I pedaled towards our meet-up: it was so gloriously cold.
after a quick nibble of supermarket doughnuts we headed up diamond head. as leroy began the descend of monsarrat avenue he remarked, “hope my chain’s tensioned.” moments later a loud “kur-chang” erupted from leroy’s bicycle and his chain fell off. riding a brakeless track bicycle with no other option for slowing down leroy put his foot on the rear triangle thereby shredding his rear tire and forcefully bringing his bicycle to halt.
“there would have been a garage sale,” quipped leroy had events gone unfavorably. shortly afterwards it was back to life as a married father living in the suburbs.
after a breakfast slightly more nutrient-dense then a doughnut I headed to the first “breakaway 100” race. the event was hosted by michael schwenke and seth goodnight and the idea was the mimic the epic final race of the classic bicycle film “breaking away.” since the event was postponed for nearly a month I had no idea it was actually happening until kawika posted: “anybody going to the breakaway 100. i think i will be there. holla!”
the gathering of people was so small that I was coerced to participate just so a team could have the required third racer. I counted fifteen boys and three girls in attendance. although I was slated to race one lap around the course there was no way I was giving up the bicycle until I chased down my opponents. so after five laps and a decent lead I swapped out to mark lavender and caught my breath.
the race ended up being only seventeen laps as campus security politely asked us to leave. apparently racing bicycles on an unused course on a saturday morning is a crime.
on sunday morning nimz, eilif, and I headed to the contemporary museum. the actual exhibit was rather ho-hum: drawings of ants in repetition? but the company was splendid. we wandered outdoors in the museum's large grounds and made our own art installations.
monday arrived in its usual fashion: hostile and unwelcoming. it seemed that every office thought messengers should work through a state holiday and decided to stockpile additional work. it was a definite “wake-up, the weekend’s over s0n” monday. in the late afternoon I shared an elevator with rice.
“hey sau, how are you?” asked rice.
“awake,” I replied.
after a brief pause rice said, “did you just say you are ‘awake?’”
“being awake is half the battle” I replied.
“I spend my day day-dreaming that I am asleep,” said rice as she exited the elevator.
