Rando Man

Some say you couldn’t remember your user name and password.  Others say you noticed your fan base was mainly spammers.  Were you lazy, gutless or just clueless?  You weren’t saying.  We do know you were warned by the blog’s admin: You’ve been gone for more than a year and had better post something quick, or else a permanent DNF looms in front of you.

So here you are, Rando Man, unsure whether your mental cuesheet agrees with your emotional GPS.  Where have you been these past 12 months?  We’ve had an entire brevet series in NJ,  PBP has come and gone and another brevet series is already upon us.  What have you got to say for yourself?

Maybe you got sick, or crashed, and couldn’t get out on your bike for a while.  Perhaps you got down on your luck, got depressed, couldn’t face the words staring back at you from the monitor.  Maybe you saw the weather turn warmer, got on your bike again, and reignited your imagination.  Maybe just riding the bike can improve your mood and jump start your spirit.

We’ll be more convinced when we see more of you.  Some bloggers blog several times a day.  A blog that’s inactive for a year isn’t a blog, but an archive.  It’s good to see you again, Rando Man, but try staying a little longer this time.  The spammers missed you.

The Rando Man sat in a large room on a comfortable sofa. An electric organ chimed in the background. He couldn’t quite make out the tune. A voice from the intercom intoned: “Mr. Rando Man. Mr. Rando Man. The devil will see you in two minutes.”

What brought him here, or more to the point, why? Rando Man last remembered sitting on his own sofa, watching Phil Liggett call the end of Paris-Roubaix on TV. “Stuart O’Grady has just made a cheeky move,” Liggett had said, but Rando Man didn’t remember anything else. Now someone had turned the thermostat way too high and it was time to reflect on the past.

Was it the times he’d left bike grease on the living room rug? Disappeared for an entire weekend on a 600k? Called his wife for a lift home once too often? Was excessive wearing of spandex grounds enough for making this one-way journey south?

The man with the horns ushered him wordlessly into an elevator. Down they went, for what seemed like a long time. Was he headed for a mine? He and the man got out of the elevator, but instead of a mine the lobby looked familar. He knew what it was: His office landing. But that wasn’t underground; It was 17 stories above the city. They walked down the corridor and into his office.

“Here is where you belong,” the man with the horns said. “Don’t try to close the blinds. They don’t work.”

Outside was not a subterranean tunnel, but a beautiful spring day in the city. His door lock clicked. The man was gone. Rando Man sat at his desk. There was a stack of paper in his inbox. Far below, he could make out people in shorts and shirt sleeves, jogging. He saw a couple of cyclists. He picked up the phone. No dial tone. He tried the Internet. No roadbikerider.com or cyclingnews.com, only his email system. Every email was a work assignment.

He’d better get started, Rando Man thought. He would try not to look out the window too much.

His ride began with four wheels under a stroller, progressed to three wheels, then to two (with two training wheels). Shortly after his 10th birthday, Rando Man learned to ride a two-wheeler without falling over. His mother was there to catch him if he fell. It was one of the happiest days of his life.

Rando Man rode to visit friends, to race his brother around the park, to explore new neighborhoods. Shortly after his 20th birthday, he learned to drive. Four wheels again, this time with a motor. He began to use his two-wheeler less and less. It sat in the basement.

Shortly after his 30th birthday, Rando Man and his wife had a son. The son progressed from four wheels to three wheels, then to two with training wheels. In the driveway of their house, Rando Man helped his son learn to balance his two-wheeler. It was one of the proudest days of his life. Still, Rando Man’s own two-wheeler remained unused.

Shortly after his 40th birthday, Rando Man decided to sign up for a 10-mile charity ride with his son. After they finished the ride, it was as though Rando Man had awakened from a 20-year dream. He joined a club and began riding each weekend, then several times a week. Within two months he had completed a 100-mile ride in 8 hours. It was one of the most exhausting days of his life.

Shortly after his 50th birthday, Rando Man has seen most of the controles on his brevet card. He’s managed to get them signed or stamped each time, though sometimes he’s been lost, despite the cue sheet. He has learned that all these years, without really understanding, he was climbing a very long way up a very high mountain. At 50, he sees he’s reached the top and is about to begin the trip down. He’s been told that descending is always more dangerous than climbing.

He’ll keep his eyes open and try to stay alert until the end. He doesn’t even know where the finishing controle is located, or how long it will take to get there. He just imagines a very old regional brevet administrator, dressed in white, with a book of names in his hand, waiting for his arrival.

The Rando Man grew up in one of the big cities in New Jersey. For Christmas when he was 7 or 8, his parents bought him a red Sears one-speed bicycle with 24-inch balloon tires and a coaster brake. To stop the bike, you simply pedalled backwards.

The “Sears,” as the Rando Man and his brother would call this bike, would later have STP stickers over the chain guard and feature a speedometer with a needle that pointed to the speed the bike was going. But for the first six or seven months, all the bike had were training wheels. Young Rando Man liked riding around the block on his new bike, but the training wheels were an embarassment for someone who was 7 or 8. Kids his age, by and large, did not use training wheels.

One day that spring, his mother took him to a quiet street a few blocks away with a wide sidewalk, pushed him ahead and let go. “Keep pedalling and keep the wheel straight!,” Rando Man’s mom said. After a few unsuccessful tries, Rando Man managed to steer just enough to keep the bike upright. First, he rode 10 feet, then 10 yards, then half the block. By that evening, he was riding completely around his block.

There was a park about a block away. Rando Man rode on the sidewalks in the park with his younger brother, who brought his tricycle. The Rando Man was happy. He had discovered a way to travel to new places. He did not realize just how far he would eventually travel.

Rando Man is now middle-aged. His bikes have gone from one gear, to three gears, to 10 gears, to 18 gears, to 27 gears. Though the bikes changed, the Rando Man’s attitude about them never changed. He kept looking for new places to ride.

When Rando Man was about 12, he decided to ride to the next town, which was 50 blocks away. He rode the entire route on the sidewalk, on his 3-speed, getting off the bike to walk at each cross street. When he finished that ride, he thought of other towns, farther away, he could reach by bike.

Later, he would ride across a continent and up and down mountains. Inside, though, he never changed. He just wanted to ride to the next town over.

The Rando Man loves to ride his bike. He goes out when the temperature is well below freezing, when the winds are blustery and the rain is falling. He can ride for 20 minutes or for 20 hours. He is happy, either way. But, for him, riding his bike is really only an hors d’oeuvre to the main course. It is the ride after the ride where he achieves his peak state of well-being.

Perhaps it is the rush of endorphins or dopamine in his brain, released by a surfeit of exercise. Perhaps it is a consciousness swept clean by hours gliding along roads, free of the cares of work, home and family. Perhaps it is the early stages of delirium, brought on by crushing fatigue. Either way, he is ridiculously pleased with himself. Only one pang of guilt ever disturbs his reverie at such times. The ride after the ride takes place in an automobile. The Rando Man does not like to admit that he can be happier in a car than on his bike.

During this magical place and time, the Rando Man is alone in his car. Usually he has the radio or his CD player set on a rather high volume. Often he is singing along. If the radio is off, he sings anyway. There is always music on the ride after the ride. In such a mood, the Rando Man has written melodies for songs, the first chapters of novels and memoirs, introductions to memos. If only he could extract whatever it is that courses through his brain at such times, place it in a tube, seal it, and sell it, the Rando Man could make enough money to retire and ride all the time. But he cannot.

Alas, the ride after the ride does not last forever. Within a couple of hours, the dopamine wears off, the endorphins disappear. The song he was composing remains unfinished, the memoir he wrote never gets typed, the memo is postponed at least until Monday. After the ride after the ride, the Rando Man encounters the next stage of his manic-depressive post-ride journey. He just wants to eat a big dinner and go to sleep, for a long time.

In a galaxy called the Milky Way, on a planet called Earth, in a place called New Jersey, there is a road. The road might be a small lane in a rural hamlet, or a pock-marked backstreet through a tired city. Maybe it’s a quiet byway through farmlands and clusters of expensive commuter housing. Whatever kind of road it is, on that road moves a lone figure, riding a bicycle, singing to himself. That figure is the Rando Man.

Randonneuring inspires story telling on the grand scale of Homer in the “Odyssey” or Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.” The story of the Rando Man, however, is not the story of the road or of some adventure encountered on the road. Randonneurs enjoy long reports of their rides, detailing every flat tire fixed and rest stop visited. The story of the Rando Man, however, is not the reporting of any rides, not any particular ride, that is. The Rando Man’s story, instead, takes place inside his helmet, above his neck and between his ears, in that most awesome and confounding boldily organ, the brain.

For the Rando Man, cycling is more of a head trip than a road trip. Follow the Rando Man, then, as that remarkable 12-watt appliance within his cranium conjures up a smorgasbord of useless information, such the name of every pitcher on the New York Mets 1969 World Series team, the complete lyrics to the original Cracker Jack commercial or the melodies of every song on Abba’s greatest hits. Watch his consciousness wander from the ridiculous to the sublime, with intimations of the supernatural not far away. Einstein may have conceived the theory of relativity while riding his bike, the Rando Man might compose a song or write the first chapter of his brilliant debut novel. Or maybe not.

For the Rando Man, it’s all in his head.