Chapter 15

The finish area in Portland is very much a carnival-like atmosphere. First you have riders finishing and getting their prized finisher’s patch. Then you have a vendor’s area and a beer garden with food carts and such. Then you have cycling related vendor areas, and of course, a few jugglers, street buskers, uni cyclists and then the requisite random street people thrown in for good measure. In other words, the finish area is simply chaos! But boy does it really feel good to get there!

We rolled into this circus in good order, having survived the stop and go final six miles into downtown Portland. We saw more riders go down in those final fateful six miles than in the entire two-hundred that came before them. Tired people in stop and go traffic, all the while crossing and re-crossing the light rail tracks that crisscross downtown Portland, is just a bit too much to ask of some folks, especially after two days in the saddle on a double century. Anyway, we arrived at the finish area amid the blare of loudspeakers and the blast of steel drum music. We all claimed our finisher’s patch, on its handy lanyard string, and with self-satisfied, if silly, grins on our faces we entered the fray of the finish line festival.

Since we were staying overnight in Portland, we didn’t bother getting into any of the portable shower lines and headed straight for the food court in the center of the park. Ahh, the smells of freshly charred chicken wraps, or bratwursts, with an ice-cold beer or, well ... you get the picture. After a couple of hundred miles, it felt good to grab something guilty and sit in the shade to enjoy it.

The smells and sounds reminded me of one of the great tours. People would camp out for days in some of the prime spots on le Tour, to ensure that they had that perfect view for the fleeting moments when the peloton rode into view. These tent cities tended to move with the tour as it progressed across the countryside. You’ve all seen the screaming maniacs along the road on a stage of the tour, right? The riders say they really don’t notice them, or pay attention, but that’s just a flat out lie. There I’d be struggling and suffering on some Alpine mountain pass and the smell of German sausage would get caught in my nose! They say that smell is the sense that has the strongest connection to memory, and boy could I remember a few less than physically pleasant assents after these smells!

So, here I am, sitting in the shade of a nice oak tree surrounded by beautiful women who are reclining on the cool grass when what should I hear, but the sound of some jackass telling ‘no shit there I was’ stories in the beer garden. That this jackass turned out to be my current turd of the week, John, was simply beyond wonderful! Before I could so much as flinch, I had Jane and Melody at my side.

“Don’t do it, Nate. This little prick isn’t worth the energy it would take to pound him to paste!’ Jane said soothingly from my right side.

“Yeah, Nate, his dick is probably so short he needs tweezers!” Melody said amid laughter from the rest of the Queens.

“Oh trust me ladies,” said Beth with an evil gleam in her eyes, “It’s smaller than that! Way smaller!” Beth held up two fingers with a gap so small between them, you’d have been hard-pressed to pass a human hair between them. The laughter finally seemed to have reached the beer garden as John and his story buddies glanced our way. John jerked as if struck when he saw Beth in the center of the laughter. He blushed furiously when what she had said was relayed to him by one of his good buds. Gotta’ love those wingmen!

While he was pulling himself together, I leaned over to Beth and said, “Listen, you have no reason to trust me here, other than what my fan club has told you.” I nodded to my teammates, and a few of them had the modesty to look at least mildly embarrassed. “Anyway, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to handle this my own way. And no, I will not be pounding anyone unless they really deserve it. I think I have a way of cutting them all down to size without resorting to physical activities they might just regret.”

With that, I pulled myself upright and having conveniently drained my beer, I sauntered over to the beer garden for a refill. I stood at one end of the makeshift bar and ordered another beer. John and a couple of his cronies sidled over to have a word with me, as I hoped they would.

“Tell you what.” I said, “How about we save the whole ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ conversation for when and if I give a fuck about your opinion!” They pulled up short at this opening line, as I think they thought they were going to bring the thunder. “How about we settle this in the only way it can really get settled: on the road? I’ll tell you what, you pick three other of your good buddies to ride with, and I’ll meet you at the Seward Park Omnium in two weeks with my team. Since it’s a public race, we’ll have to play nice, but it will be winner takes all, based on USCF points for the three events. You win, you can tell all the ‘no shit’ stories about beating me and my team you want. I win, and you shut your fucking little weasel face and crawl back under the rock you escaped from, you got it?”