karimisms

“Karim, you don’t bike, you cycle.” That was the advice of Portico editor Julie Keith as I prepared for my first bike ride ever this past summer.

The Salvation Army Century Ride started smoothly. Hundreds of cyclists took off from East Birmingham towards Springville. My Samford group and I were just peddling along when we went by a “wipe out”, (a cyclist’s term for someone losing it). All I saw was a girl laying on the side of the road with a few people around her, and a knee that lacked much skin. I gripped the handle bar a little tighter as we moved along the wet road.

The air was thick and humid from the rain the night before, and the cars didn’t seem to know we were there. Each mile took somewhere between 12 and 15 minutes. We were going at an easy pace while being passed by the serious cyclists, and then I met my first “hill” (a cyclist term for a mountain that will make you hate yourself.) The hill was a half-mile long, and at the very top of it, I knew I should have trained more than the “one time” I did.

We continued along when I saw the 26 mile turn, I decided to stick with it. There is always the option of the “sag— wagon” (a cyclist term meaning the van that picks you up when you expire from the many hills.) My legs started feeling like mush, and my hands were getting extremely tired from gripping the handle bar. It took me a while to figure out taking on the hills. You don’t want to be on the “granny” gear (A cyclist term meaning the gear that allows your 90-year-old grandmother to summit the longest hill.) You want to become friends with a gear somewhere in the middle. It is a game between how fast you want to finish the *-&^%#? Hill and how fast you want to spin without going anywhere.

We suddenly got on a road that made the miles go by faster. It was a beautiful two-lane highway lined with farms and rolling hills. Then I saw the 40-mile split, and for some odd reason, I continued along with my group toward the goal of 60 miles. No one said a word; I just thought I knew what I was doing.

Black clouds started to move in at mile 48, and then the sky opened up and a deluge of what felt like nails in the face began. We were looking for shelter when the sag wagon drove up and picked us up. I felt so relieved…its over, or so I thought. They drove us to the next rest stop, a mile down the road, where I found out about true grit. My group was determined to finish the ride. I decided to go for it, when the guy at the rest stop warned us about the famous “cemetery hill” up a head. I had never heard the term before (a cyclist term meaning the 3-mile-hill on highway 78 a few miles east of Birmingham, or as I describe it: Death Hill). I looked at him with disbelief. I was trying to convince my self that 3-mile-hills do not exist. We start Cemetery hill, and after the first mile, I started to think: maybe its true. Mile two came along and we were still going up. Then mile three came, and I experienced my first “wall” (a marathon term meaning you cannot go any farther, or you were wishing you would turn into a wall). Somehow I finished the dreaded hill and felt a sense of jubilation as we neared the end.

As we biked into the parking lot, we knew we were dead last, but it did not matter. What mattered is that we finished despite a couple of flat tires, a monsoon, and Cemetery Hill.

I have the Salvation Army to thank for this wonderful experience. As well as Cahaba Cycles and Cameras Brookwood for their donations of the bike and the camera. I hope the ride and future rides will raise the awareness of the Salvation Army’s efforts to combat serious social ills. We cycled on that Saturday, but many people the Salvation Army helps could not provide food and shelter for their families.

Now I ride occasionally, and I will probably ride for a long time. I even came up with my own cyclist term: “tmtontydsm” (a term meaning: train more than once next time you do sixty miles!)