Highway Fatalities

Normally we wouldn't be riding our bikes into Montezuma on a Saturday morning.  The road is hilly and it's a hot, sweaty ride into town.  We had an emergency, however.  Two emergencies, in fact.

The noble emergency was my lack of any reading material.  There's a nice lady in town who runs a used bookstore / libreria.  For about $1.75 you can take out one of the library books for a couple weeks.  Alternatively, you can buy a used book and sell it back if you so wish.  The library books are of a more refined sensibility than the used books.  A lot of Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner and your more serious writers.  Basically, the stuff you just can't read in a hammock.  I lasted four chapters in "My Name Is Red", a Noble prize winning novel by Orhan Pamuk.  I'm sure it's a terrific book, I mean, it won the Noble Prize for gawd's sake.  It appears, however, I'm looking for something more like Mickey Spillane or John D. Macdonald.  That's the ticket!

The less than noble emergency was our current beer shortage.  None.  Nada.  Beerless.

So in to town we go.  It's necessary at some point in this narrative to fess up.  Embarrassing as it is, I've installed a carrying basket on the handle bars of the Bicycle Components Extreme.  Donna has lent it to me.  Her husband, Tito wouldn't be caught dead with it on his bike, so being somewhat secure in my masculinity, my piece of crap bike has one more strike against it.

I pick up a schlock mystery novel at the bookstore.  We score a dozen Imperials, the beer of choice, at the Montezuma Super and we're good to go.  The beers are securely stowed in the basket, which I should mention is detachable.  Detachable so I can gaily prance about town doing my shopping.

A word about the road from Montezuma to our house.  It is a bad road.  Potholes, dust, boulders, gravel, ATV bandidos racing at top speed, trail bikes blazing past and the odd dog wandering about.  I'm wanting to get home and refrigerate the Imperials so pedal furiously up the inclines and coast at speed down the steeply sloped road.  I'm doing pretty well, shaking the beers up a bit but nothing tragic, until - a serious pothole is in my path and I'm going too fast to avoid it.  SLAM!  The detachable basket detaches, releasing the brilliantly engineered quick-release brakes on the front wheel of the Bicycle Components Extreme on its way by, locking one of the brake pads against the wheel, resulting in a quick stop.

A motorcycle races past, beeping it's irritating horn, the nice lady on the back of the bike boisterously laughing at me.  It's so nice to provide pleasure.  I survey the destruction.  The Imperial troops are scattered about in the middle of the road, escaping both the gay basket and their plastic nooses.  Some of the soldiers are spraying their contents in the midst of the destruction.

I transfer the dead and injured back to the detachable basket which I once again slide into place.  I more or less get the front brake back into place.  Adrenaline is my friend.  I ignore the partially engaged front brake as it screams at me.  I power up the last hill or two, glide slowly down the slopes, careful to ferry home the casualties of this tragedy.

A pin hole leak in one of the Imperials has released sufficient pressure so that when I put it out of it's misery, I'm not showered with any contents under high pressure.  I've got a book, I've got a some beer.  A lesson learned.

The lesson?  Only carry a six pack in the detachable basket.  If we buy a dozen, Tazy can carry six in her backpack.