TWICE VICTORIOUS (20 page)

CYCLOCROSS: a wild and dangerous
race over obstacles on difficult terrain

Adam was in Taiwan again, had been since the Tuesday after Labor Day. Perhaps
that was just as well. Stell had officiated at races three times in September, using up the
entire weekend at each event. He would not have been overjoyed with her absences, and
after his all too obvious boredom at the Eugene races, she wouldn't invite him to go along
with her again.

She braked for the SUV that cut ahead of her, across the bike lane and into the
parking strip. 'Share the road' was a concept some people just didn't get. When the vehicle
pulled into the clinic parking lot not twenty feet ahead of her, she wondered which mail
order forger the driver had gotten his license from.

The early October air was warm against her bare legs as she sat on the front steps
of the clinic to slip out of her cleated cycling shoes. This was the first time she'd ridden to
her P.T. appointment. Would Carl have a fit?

"You rode in?" he said, when she walked into his office. "Good. I was going to
suggest you do so next time, so I could test you after sustained exercise." He motioned
toward the treadmill. "You know the drill. Let's get started."

"Well?" she said, after Carl had gone through the tests.

He grinned. "You're seeing Frank next, aren't you?"

"Yes. How's my leg?"

"Go see Frank. I'll give him a call."

"Carl,
what about my leg?
"

His grin grew wider. "No need to yell. It's better. Much better. Now go see Frank.
He'll answer your questions."

She was only in Frank Pauvel's waiting room about five minutes before the nurse
called her inside. The sports medicine specialist had warned her more than once that
pushing herself wouldn't help her get better faster, and she'd tried to take his advice. She
really had.

He poked and prodded, looked over her chart, and studied the x-rays, both the
ones from right after her accident, and the ones she'd had taken last week. At last Stell
couldn't stand the suspense any longer.

"Well? Say something? Is it any better?"

Frank frowned, scratched his chin, screwed up his mouth. Slowly he nodded.

"What does that mean? Tell me, darn it!"

He broke into a wide grin. "It means that I can't see any reason why you can't
resume a normal life, as long as you don't overdo your training."

"A normal--" Stell couldn't believe she'd heard correctly.

"That's right. As long as you start out slow, I see no reason why you can't go into
training. Just back off if you feel any unusual pain. And call me."

Stell jumped off the examining table and threw her arms around him. "Thank you.
Oh, thank you, Frank. I'd hoped--" Her voice broke as a huge lump formed in her throat. "I
wanted so badly--" She felt tears roll down her cheeks and buried her face in his lab
coat.

For several moments he held her, patting her back gently. Finally he pushed her
away, and said, "You did it, not me. All I did was growl at you when you got out of line. If
you weren't in such incredible shape, you'd be another six months healing."

Sniffing, she could only nod.

"Just remember, you're not going to reach peak condition immediately. It'll take
time. The more time the better, because you don't want to risk re-injuring the tissues. So
take it easy, okay?"

"Okay. Yes. I will." Using the paper towel he handed her to wipe her runny nose,
Stell worked to pull herself together. She had hoped to hear good news today, but this was
beyond her wildest fantasies. She promised Frank again that she'd train carefully, and said
goodbye.

All the way home she grinned like a clown.

Only when she was putting her bike away, did she happen to think,
Wait 'til I
tell Adam.

That was when she realized that he might not see her good news in the same light
she did.

* * * *

The narrow residential street was lined with cars, with not a parking place to be
seen. Adam almost turned around and went to the office. His desk was piled with decisions
to be made, crises to be dealt with. What was he doing here on a drizzly October afternoon,
anyway?

Three blocks from the entrance to the parking lot, he finally found an empty slot.
After locking the car, he pulled his wool driving cap lower over his brow and zipped the
high collar of his jacket tighter against his throat. Damn, that wind had a bite to it!

A line of bright neon yellow flags marked the Cyclocross route. Adam tried to
trace it with his eyes, as it dropped over the shoulder of the low hill. Near the bottom, a
board, easily a foot high, was staked across the route, clearly meant as an obstacle for the
cyclists. "What the hell?" he muttered, not really surprised. They were all crazy.

He headed uphill, toward the crowd and the source of the loudspoken
announcements. From the sound of it, the race had already begun.

There they came, a huge pack, out from behind a maze of orange fencing, along a
chute about eight feet wide. A steady stream of riders swept by him and on down the hill.
Most were already wet and spattered with mud.

He watched as the pack leaders reached the obstacle. They swung off their bikes,
picked them up, and jumped the board. Without breaking stride, they were back aboard,
peddling furiously across a swale and up the opposite slope. As he watched, one caught a
wheel on the board and fell, to trip the person behind. The pack separated around them, but
no one else tripped.

Was Stell actually riding in this race? He couldn't believe she'd risk life and limb
doing something as stupid as this. One misstep and she'd lose her chance at the Sawtooth
Classic.

The spectators drifted across the lawn, toward the crest of a hill. He followed.
Waiting while three riders tore past him on the muddy track, he looked around, saw
bicycles everywhere. The route must go all the way around the park, then. He wondered
how long it was.

"My God!" Adam stared, not believing what he saw before him. The hill on which
he stood dropped away at better than a forty-five degree angle, into a deep ravine no more
than a hundred yards wide. A muddy track led off to his right, angled down the steep slope,
then up again to follow a narrow path between a chainlink fence and a sheer cliff. Directly
opposite where he stood, an apparently vertical chute dove back into the ravine, crossed it,
bent around a tree, and wound away again, to climb an only slightly gentler slope.

Even as he watched, a group of riders came from behind him and slid, ran,
tumbled, or rode down the first slope. At the bottom those who were still mounted jumped
off. With bikes slung across their backs or over a shoulder, they all ran--ran!--up the
opposite hill.

"Go, Chris! Catch it up!" a young woman nearby yelled, as a skinny guy in a black
and red jersey almost lost it on the slippery mud.

Adam wondered how any of them remained upright. The first riders reached the
top of the hill and bounced back aboard. He watched as they rode along the edge of the
cliff, too fascinated to look away, even though he knew he was watching suicide in
progress.

"My God!" he said again, when the first rider aimed his bike down that vertical
chute, was quickly followed by five more. His breath caught in his throat as he watched
them descend, surely out of control.

"That's the Elevator Shaft," he heard someone behind him say. "I rode it last year.
It's terrifying."

Another voice seemed to ask a question.

"No, it's better to ride it. Look!"

Adam looked, as a rider fell into the blackberry bushes framing the Elevator Shaft.
Another, obviously lacking confidence, dismounted and tried to carry his bike down, only
to slip in the mud and go sliding, out of control, all the way to the bottom. Luckily the rider
just behind was able to avoid him.

All around him voices were starting to cheer for favorites as more and more
cyclists reached the ravine.

"Way to go, Garry!"

"Close it up. Close it up, Warren!"

He saw a flash of pink and green just as the voice behind him called, "Yea, Stell!
You've got the lead!" He looked, following her with his eyes, as she dismounted, ran full
tilt up the hill, and disappeared behind the trees near the top. Within seconds she was again
in sight, heading for the Elevator Shaft.

Adam closed his eyes. He couldn't watch.

He opened his eyes. He couldn't not watch.

Stell didn't even hesitate at the top. Almost before he could gasp, she was at the
bottom, cutting a smooth curve around the tree, and speeding across the ravine, to climb
out of his view. The rider just behind her slid in the growing puddle at the bottom of the
ravine and careened across the grass. When he finally came to rest, his back wheel was
fully detached from his bike.

For the third time, Adam said "My God!" but this time it was as heartfelt as any
prayer he'd ever breathed.

Quickly he cut through the crowd, went to stand near the start/finish line. The
orange plastic fencing marked off a chicane, a twisted path about a hundred yards long. It
looked relatively safe, and it slowed the riders so he wouldn't have to watch as they tore
themselves and their bikes apart.

Quickly growing bored with the relative tameness of bicycles merely slipping and
sliding through the chicane, Adam followed the double line of flagging, moving against the
direction of the race. He'd overheard someone say that the leaders were doing about six
minute laps and the race lasted an hour. He had plenty of time to see the whole route.

He was staring, fascinated by the activity at the second hurdle, when his name was
called.

"Hey, Boss."

Adam swung around. Pushing a bike with a bent front wheel, limping, and
grinning like a fool, Rick was approaching across the lawn. His muddy jersey stuck to his
body, rain streamed down his legs, and shivers visibly shook him.

"What happened?" Adam unzipped his jacket and stripped it off. The cold wind
cut through his sweater, chilling him to the bone. "Put this on," he ordered Rick, furious
that the younger man would risk pneumonia so casually.

"I lost it on the last turn," he said, jerking his chin back toward the north end of the
park. "It's getting damn slick and the wheels just went out from under me." He pulled
Adam's jacket around him, tucked his hands under his arms. "Thanks."

Adam could see the goosebumps on his legs, exposed below the cycling
shorts.

They both stood and watched the cyclists laboring up the hill, dismounting, and
jumping--or trying to--over the foot-high hurdle. Some were obviously at the end of their
strength. Lifting their bikes seemed almost more than they could do, and remounting
obviously took agility and coordination that they were rapidly losing.

Most of them. A tall man in blue and white soared off his bike, lifted it as if it
weighed ounces instead of pounds, and bounced over the hurdle and onto his saddle. "He
won last year's Master's Nationals," Rick commented when Adam marveled aloud at the
contrast with most of the racers. "Look. Here comes Stell."

Adam was treated to another display of phenomenal stamina. Stell's dismount,
leap, and remount were graceful, quick, and efficient.

"Isn't she something?" Rick said, wonder in his voice.

"She is indeed," Adam agreed, acknowledging her excellence, even as his gut
knotted in sheer terror.

Something else sat in his gut like a lead weight. The fear that each time she
competed, she would slip farther away from him. Stell McCray wasn't going to give up
bicycle racing, not even for love. Adam wasn't sure he could accept second place in her
life.

Stell had seen Adam as she started down the Elevator Shaft on the second circuit.
All her attention should have been on the race, all her concentration on staying upright and
not sliding on the increasingly liquid track. In a crowd of forty of fifty spectators, he stood
out, his neon orange-trimmed KIWANDA rain parka like a fiery beacon, demanding her
notice. He was watching with a kind of horrified fascination. She forced herself to
concentrate on the race.

Later she saw him standing beside the obstacles, but she was concentrating so hard
on keeping her feet under her in the sea of slippery mud that she could spare him no
attention. The third time she caught sight of him, she was careening around the chicane,
with only one lap to go. She forgot him as soon as he disappeared behind her, because she
couldn't afford to let anything distract her.

Then the race was over, and she had come in fourth. Mud-covered, one cheek
streaked with dried blood, and starting to shiver as the adrenaline and sweat of her exertion
both dried up, Stell leaned on her bike near the finish line, her eyes searching the crowd for
another sight of Adam.

"You're crazy, you know that?"

Stell spun around, knowing that voice. "Hi, Frank," she said, dreading what he
was going to say to her. Although neither Frank Pauvel nor Carl had given her permission
to ride a Cyclocross so soon, they hadn't expressly forbidden it, either.

"How's it feel?" Frank was scowling, but that didn't mean a lot. He looked like he
was scowling most of the time, with his heavy black eyebrows. "This hurt?"

To her surprise, his probing at her knee wasn't the slightest bit painful. She told
him so.

"Rotate your leg."

She did so. At his directions, she moved her leg through its full range of motion.
He watched and touched, exploring the hip, the ankle, as well as the knee. It wasn't until
her chattering teeth became audible that he ceased his examination.

"Make an appointment so I can check you out. Tell Marla I told you to come in
this week." He smiled then, looking happier than she'd ever seen. "I wouldn't have given
you two cents to have recovered this well, this soon. And then to pull a stupid stunt like
racing today--well, all I can say, Stell, is that someone, somewhere, wants you to ride that
race next summer."