Brenda's TRI

Brenda's TRI

Monday, June 23, 2014

Remember me? I'm Brenda Starr Trek, Barb's fitness hybrid bicycle. She took me on a great adventure this weekend. The first part of it was miserable. She put me in a rack on the back of Dexter (my teammate, her car), and I was the rider, on the highways and byways all the way to Wisconsin.

It rained on me, but at every rest stop she would come back and tell me what a good little bike I was, and check to make sure the rack was secure. Some of those rain storms were scary.

When we got there, it had cleared off enough that she could unload me, and she took me INSIDE the hotel. I rode in an elevator! And sat in her room. Then on Saturday, she wheeled me back down and took me to a field where OTHER bicycles were being left, and covered my seat with a plastic bag and left me all alone overnight!

I'm the one with the white plastic bag over my seat, and the little headlight. The bag blew off overnight and my seat had a puddle on it when she came back in the morning, bringing my other team-mate, Eliza the Sleek wetsuit over her shoulder, and all her equipment in bags. She wheeled me over to the mechanics' tent, where they pumped up my tires and put new lube on my chain, since I'd been riding out in the rain the days leading up to the race.

I knew I had my work cut out for me, as Barb kept giving me soothing words. "We're going for a nice, long, Sunday ride, Brenda." Then she left me alone for a while again.

When she came back, she was in a bit of a hurry. She was half out of Eliza, and dripping wet. Eliza was discarded, and Barb put on the shoes with the clips, a shirt with a number on it (the same one she had marked ME with), slipped on the camelback water supply, and ate a Gu. She took the empty packet over to the trash can, and came back, slipped me out and we were on our way to the "Bike out" sign, when her sister Alicia hollered: "GLASSES!" So I had to stop while she went back and put on her prescription sunglasses. I don't think would have survived the day if she didn't go back for them!

Then she stopped me again while she went and used a porta-pot... and we were OFF! What a great day for a ride! We rode over much more interesting roads than I usually get to see. There were hills and curves. There was shade and sun. We were IMPORTANT, because there were police men and women holding back traffic so that WE could go across the highways and turn left at various places.

Barb kept muttering things about "an hour and a half to get back to transition" as she pedaled. She used almost every one of my gears going up and down those hills. She rode with those shoes clipped in until the last mile when we were getting close to the end. Then whoosh, with a triumphant dismount, we were BACK, and she left me alone again.

It was a couple of hours later before Barb came back to get me out of the rack. She was smiling and wearing little bits of metal with paint on them.

She was congratulating the other people who left their bikes around me and were back retrieving them. Some of them had those bits of metal too. Everyone was very happy.

I think I like doing this. I hope she takes me again sometime. But even if we don't do one like this, I know we'll have plenty of rides together. But first, I have to take a ride on the back of Dexter so we can get home.

All you other bikes out there, I hope you are being ridden and loved, too.