After years of recovering from a car wreck, I found myself overweight and diagnosed with diabetes. Not wanting to go on insulin, I begged my doctor to give me one shot at lowering my blood sugar, and I began riding a bike. I started out at 270 pounds, and three years later, I race at 185-190 lbs.
After qualifying for my first Texas Senior Games, my parents gave me a full carbon racing bike. I took it out for its maiden ride, which became an instant epic. Clouds were looming dark from the northeast, which usually keeps blowing to the NE, but this day, the clouds decided to take another route and began bearing down on me (from behind).When I reached my turnaround point, I faced a strong 30mph headwind, even that was kind compared to what was to come. Hail started coming down, almost horizontally, and it was very painful when they navigated around my glasses and beat up my eyeballs. I was going downhill as fast as I could (El Paso’s mountains), as I was stuck in no-man’s land, run-off from the mountains had the lower ground covered, and just when it couldn’t get any worse, it began to thunder followed by massive lightning strikes. In the 15 minutes it took me to fly down the mountain, there must have been 50-60 lightning strikes all around me, like it was looking for me. High tension wires were buzzing and crackling from the rain, making me more scared.
The roads were covered with about an inch and a half of water, and I was passing vehicles. I happened to find a drainage underpass, and took refuge and made a call for a ride; No one home, so I waited to see if the rain would abate when I notice a wall of water coming down the arroyo. I had just enough time to climb up to road level, looking back, the water level was a few inches from the top, so I skirted another disaster. Since there was not ride coming to save me, I just pounded the pedals the rest of the way home. What a way to break in a new bike, on a truly epic ride. Oh, by the way, I named my racing steed Thor, not for the sprinter, for the lightning that scared the bejeebers out of me!