Friday Follies ~~ BRAPP

Several years ago Mark had a really good idea.  Winter was coming, and of course it was getting harder to get in a weekday ride.  Mark had the thought, “Let’s invite a lot of different folks to each host one Sunday ride during the course of the Winter.”  Each individual ride leader would pick out a route that they liked, and lead a group ride on that route.  In this way many of us could become more familiar with the area, learn more about different ride-able places, and have some fun in the process.  At the same time, we would all become exposed to a lot of different riding styles.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.  And we went forward with it.

It’s important to remember that this was about 1998, and we did not have the large number of riders and routes in the area that we enjoy now.

A couple of the more respected and stronger riders in the community led the first two rides, and they were variations on the longer of the Summer “training ride” routes.  Then one of the ladies from the Newnan crowd took us all on a grand tour of southern Coweta County.  Only about 15 people got lost on that one.  Mark too a turn, and we went on a long ramble, down past Brooks and back.  I had volunteered too, but my turn would not come until well after the New Year.

So what with six things and another, one of the area’s more eccentric riders was due to take us out.  It was a late November ride.  This gentleman (call him Crazy Ron) proposed we go on a big loop that he had devised.  He called it B.R.A.P.P.  That stood for Bike Ride Around Peachtree City’s Perimeter.  (The name was a bit of a play on the acronym for Bike Ride Across Georgia.

I was watching the weather, as I usually do.  The outlook or the weekend was deteriorating as the week progressed.  Also, during the course of the week, Crazy Ron came into the shop several times to describe his proposed route.  He seemed very excited and positive.  (But then, how could one tell?)

On Saturday, a cold front started to roll slowly into the area, and the clouds formed, and it started to rain, just a scattering of slow drizzles.  The outlook for Sunday wasn’t much better.  I had a sort of sinking feeling when Crazy Ron came into the shop with a sheet of paper in his hand.  My premonition was quickly confirmed.

“Hey Steve!”  Crazy Ron said,  “Turns out I can’t go on the ride tomorrow.  Family stuff in Conyers.  I have a cue sheet here.  You can lead the ride for me.  It’s easy.  See ya!”  And with that he left the store.  I looked at his “cue sheet.”  To say the least it was kind of vague.

We had already posted the ride location and time.  It was too late to call it off.

My daughter and I loaded our bikes up, and left into a foggy drizzle.  “Hey, Pops, look at it like this,”  she said,  “In this weather, likely no one will show up.”

Now there was something to hope for.  A vain hope, as it turned out.

There were about eight riders assembled at the school yard, when my daughter and I pulled up.  I got out of the truck, hoping that I might be able to call this thing off.  No one had a bike on the ground yet, and everyone seemed to have that,  “I don’t know.  You tell me,” look on their faces.

I was just drawing a breath to say something like,  “Hey folks, why don’t we just call this off, and wait for a better day?”  I never got the chance.  Just as I completed the inhalation, Matt rolled into the parking lot.  He was already mounted up and riding.  More he was on a road bike.

Now Matt is one of the more positive folks I have ever met.  He is also a demon BMX rider and stunt rider.  No one had ever seen Matt on a road bike before.

“You know what,”  Matt said,  “The hardest thing about a ride on a day like this, is swinging your leg over the top tube.  After that, it’s pretty easy.”  Okay, we were going.

As we were riding out of the parking lot, someone called out,  “Hey!  Where’s Crazy Ron?”

“Um… He isn’t coming,”  I said.  “He left me his cue sheet, and asked if I would take this group out, and…”

“Crazy Ron isn’t coming to his own ride!?”

“Ur…  No?”  I said.

“That wouldn’t have anything to do with this weather, now would it?”

I didn’t reply.  We were riding.

The directions through town were pretty straightforward.  And in those days it was quite possible to go out GA-54, to GA-34, and turn off onto Fischer Rd.  That was good enough.  Fischer was (then) a very low traffic kind of back road.  Good thing too.  It was there that the first real goofy thing happened.

I’d dropped to the back of the group to do some cue sheet reading and figuring.  Suddenly I heard a major commotion ahead.  I looked up, and saw that I was about to crash into Matt and my daughter.  The two of them looked like they were already in the process of a slow collision.

Yike!

I hit the brakes, and started to let fly with an angry shout, when I realized that there was a real problem here.  My daughter had just tried to take a drink from her, brand X, back pack hydration system.  As she did, the bite valve had failed.  She’d tried to get it working, only to have it come apart in her hands and commence spewing water all over her.  She’d yelled.

Matt had been nearby, and had reacted quickly.  Matt has skills!  He rode right up next to my daughter, and reached over, with both hands, to help her with the back pack.  In the tangle, Matt was left using both hands to keep the back pack hose crimped, but he was in the way of my daughter’s ability to get her hands back on the bar.  So neither of them could get to bike controls.  The two of them could barely steer.  Stopping was clearly out of the question.

I rode up behind and to the side of Matt, and grabbed his pack with my right hand.  Then I used my left hand (front brake) to bring all three of us to a stop.  The triple dismount was, in a word, clumsy.  No one fell.  No one was hurt.

We improvised a quick fix to the faulty bite valve, and went on.

By the time we three caught up the main group, they had missed two turns. We all spent the next two hours getting unlost.  By that time it was even more foggy, colder, and raining in earnest.  (I think we were in Earnest.  I’ve never seen weather quite like that in Georgia.)

“Hey!  I know where we are!”  Someone shouted.  “We’re in the back side of Tyrone!”

“That’s great!”  I replied.  “If you can get me to Main and Castlewood, I can re-acquire the route.”

“Oh goody,”  somebody else said.  “I can hardly contain my enthusiasm.”

As we all rode down Tyrone Rd, in Fayette County, I was thinking about the route.  Specifically, there was a lot more of it ahead, and conditions were not improving.  I asked around.  Would anyone would be disappointed if I cut the ride short?

“Hey!”  Matt said.  “I was kind of hoping someone would suggest that.  You know, if we keep going to 54, and turn right, we can catch Ebinezer Rd, and that takes us directly back to the school.”  There was actual cheering at that announcement.

“Sounds like a plan,”  I said.  I noted that group morale rose sharply.

Five quick and happy miles later we were done.  Everyone congratulated everyone else.  Someone suggested we go find Crazy Ron and hang him.  But that would have been more effort than it was worth.  We all stowed bicycles, started vehicles, and said our good byes.  And just as I put my old truck in gear, the heavens opened and it deluged!

Most of that old gang are gone now, moved or stopped riding.  Matt is running an amazing business out west, and he just recently got married.  I’m not sure if Crazy Ron is still riding, but he doesn’t seem to be leading any rides these days.  Every once in a while, I run into one of the survivors of the BRAPP, and the topic comes up.  We laugh about it.  Those are the rides you remember.