Disease Riders

By Maynard Hershon

Click here for the Maynard Page on Planet Ultra!

Don't get me wrong. I admire the thousands of cyclists who collect pledges and attempt long, hard charity rides. I think it's great that people use cycling and other athletic events to raise awareness and money to combat disease.

Many of these people do 100-mile rides after decades of smoking, drinking and watching TV - and five weekends of training. They're examples to us all.

Not only do they get out and get in shape, they help countless others. They support medical research. They keep many annual charity rides alive. They support the bicycle industry. They are the salt of the cycling earth.

They scare the shit outta me.

No Sigourney Weaver movie frightened me the way a "pack" of disease riders can. In the theater, no matter how afraid I am, I know it's just a movie. On the road, behind a gaggle of disease riders, I know the danger is real.

Let's say I'm 65 miles into a 100-mile charity ride. I'm sharing a road with hundreds of bicyclists. It's a narrow road, or merely a lane set off by a row of orange cones.

By the way, if the devil wears a hat, it's an orange cone with tread-marks on it. Guys in overalls who hate cyclists spit tobacco juice and drop those cones from pickup beds. The cones divide OUR lane from the CAR lanes.

We're supposed to feel protected from traffic by those cones. Whatta joke. It's folks in cars who're protected. They can drive 15-over, same as always, separated from all us nuisance cyclists by a row of plastic cones.

Do cones make cyclists feel safe? Has a cone ever prevented a crash? No way. Cones act as mysterious magnets for bicycle wheels. They injure the very people they pretend to protect.

End of Rant.

In the coned-off lane, I'm rolling at a normal pace for a regular cyclist. I'm catching a cluster of people in disease rider jerseys going somewhat slower - not quite two-thirds my speed. They have traveled here from near and far. You can read their home states on their jerseys. You're aware that they've raised money for a worthy cause and conquered their personal fears of tough physical challenges. They're here to celebrate those victories. They deserve our congratulations.

I admire these people. I'm petrified of them.

I have to pass them; they're going 11 mph. Spread completely across our narrow path, they're laughing and chatting, unaware I'm behind them. Oblivious. I have to ask them to move over so I can pass.

I wait for the right moment. Surprising them is not a good idea. Anything might happen.

Eventually I ask. Though I speak in an unthreatening tone, I watch the group wobble and weave in the road. I pray no one locks bars with his buddy, no one brakes suddenly, no one screams and freaks and takes down Western Civilization.

Once I pass that group safely, I feel relieved, but my relief is short-lived. There's another group just like it up the road, as sure as spring saddlesores.

Danger rolls out with the disease riders, I think. A chill runs through me. There's no hospital for miles, but I can smell antiseptic. Smells like Urgent Care out here.

Don't get me wrong. I'd never want to discourage even one of those fine people from collecting pledges, attending training sessions and coming to Tucson for the big ride, the big finishing medal and the big feeling of accomplishment.

But I wonder: Has anyone mentioned to them that there will be OTHER people on the ride? That some of the other people will be faster and some slower? Has anyone told them that the road will not be theirs, not exclusively, and that they should devote some attention to safety?

Evidently, no one has so much as mentioned safety, not so much as whispered the word, to the hundreds of disease riders we welcome here every November.

Their trainers teach them about eating and drinking. They learn about pedaling cadence. Surely someone on their training staff could introduce the idea of safety. It's a foreign concept for sure, startling, but worthwhile, huh?

Someone should mention that it's good to be aware of what's going on around you. You're not in your car, where you don't give a damn what's going on outside.

Someone should mention that it's good to look behind you once in a while, good to practice looking back over your shoulder without veering across the lane. As the man said, someone could be gaining on you.

Someone should mention that if you aren't (honestly) going very fast, you might want to stay to the right so people can pass you without watching their lives flash before their eyes.

Someone should mention that creating a lane-wide rolling roadblock is not all that courteous or safe. That while your group is having fun out there bonding, doing the brave, hard thing together, others are cycling that narrow road too.

Other PEOPLE. You're not in your car. Other people matter. They're real.

If you (in your joy, fraternity and disregard for safety) contribute somehow to one or more of them crashing, those real people may sit rocking slightly on the road, hug themselves and bleed.

They may make incoherent sounds in real fear, pain and frustration. Someone may put a neck brace on them, try to keep them from passing out and duct-tape them to a plastic board for transport to a local trauma center. Really.

It's great to raise all that money. It's great to come to Tucson and do the long, challenging ride. It's great to bond with new and old friends, good folks from everywhere America who've done the same unselfish good things. Bravo.

All those things are great things, but they're not the ONLY things.

END