| Ride and Vroom |
|
|
 I NEVER WANTED TO GET MARRIED, a fact that I partly ascribe to my long-standing dismay over that Y-chromosome harbinger of matrimonial decay, the bachelor party. I have always dreaded the idea of this ritual the way most men shudder at the thought of a trip to the mall with their wife. I’m no fan of silicone-enhanced physiques, to be sure, but mostly I object to the jackassical rapport that develops when men get together alone: the shoulder punching, the beer sloshing on one another, and, in the most odious cases, at least one poor schmuck losing control of his bodily functions and making a mess of himself. So when I met a woman so sensational that, try as I might, I simply couldn’t resist asking for her hand, I decided to spare myself the skin-bar-and-tequila-shot indignities by taking my premarital affairs into my own hands.The archetypal bachelor event seems to reside somewhere between lamentation for loss of liberty and paean to masculine excess, and as I was feeling rather jaunty about the whole marriage bit, I opted for some glut. Unlike many men, however, my predilections don’t lean toward whiskey, strippers, or gambling; travel is my intoxicant of choice, and exercise is my drug. So I hatched a plan: I’d pilgrimage to Colorado’s high desert to fulfill my perennial aspiration to mountain-bike the Kokopelli Trail. Whereas many operators guide this 142-mile ribbon of sand and stone wending through the wilderness from Fruita, Colorado, to Moab, Utah, in five or six days, I would turn it into a self-indulgent charade of machismo worthy of a bachelor party by doing it in one fell push. I described the plan to my bride-to-be, and when I saw the look on her face—a contorted mask of trepidation, bemusement, and pity—I immediately realized my mistake. This was the sort of masochism that only a man would understand or sanction. So I rang up my friend Steve, for whom no details were necessary. “This is going to be great,” he said before I’d even explained the plan. Every guy should have a friend like Steve, the enthusiastic foil for your most outlandish schemes, who never says no and possesses more gusto than your own good judgment, because the best adventures often take the force of strong character. A cross between a locomotive and a creatine addict, Steve steams through life, raking in money as a technical consultant, gratifying a winsome wife, and still rooting out the time it takes to be a successful athlete. Over the years, we’ve rendezvoused countless times in the black pre-dawn, and I’ve never had to wait for him to show; we’ve pedaled for hours into 50-mile-per-hour gusts, and I’ve never heard him complain; and we’ve entered innumerable races (all of which he won, despite being seven years my senior), and I’ve never had to endure a word of bragging. The key to a great journey isn’t where you go but whom you go with, and Steve was the perfect accomplice for my bachelor epic. We would need that collective experience and the force of both personalities. Though Steve had to travel and wouldn’t arrive home until 1 a.m. the morning of our departure, he valiantly shrugged off sleep. And when I realized that the daytime temperature in Moab was hovering around 100, we decided to ride through the cool night instead. We set off from Fruita at 9:30 on a June evening, the trail squelching after a late-day squall, pedaling into the fading cobalt of a summer night, with the jaggy silhouette of sandstone towers just visible on the skyline. We talked sporadically for the first few hours, then settled into an easy silence and churned out the dark miles. Steve was suffering from a lack of rest, but my presence coaxed him forward. And when, late the next morning, with the desert heat erupting like a thunderhead, we arrived with dwindling water at a parched streambed—the second-consecutive top-off spot that had run dry—Steve sensed my apprehension and simply pedaled on. Five miles farther, at our last possible water source in the remaining 60 miles, the creek was gurgling. As we fought through debilitating leg cramps, blistering saddle sores, and insipid climbs, I found out firsthand what makes a good bachelor party. It’s not about the bourbon-addled rowdiness or manly shenanigans—though Steve and I were managing our share of the latter—but about the experience. Like all good travel, what I remember from that hot day was simply being out in this world, moving through burnt-red canyons and crackling desert landscapes, breaking through the confines of possibility. And without Steve’s taciturn company, not only would the narrative have been much less rich, but I’d also have no one with whom to relive the experience—crazy and exhilarating and brutal as it was—for years to come. Nineteen hours after we set out, Steve and I rolled into Moab, where friends regaled us with icy drinks and bags of potato chips and admiration. We briefly staggered around in triumph before settling face up on the sizzling pavement, sucking gleefully on ripe watermelon. For a moment, I worried that I might lose control of my bodily functions. But the cold and the sugar and all the flattery resuscitated me. Lying supine in the searing desert afternoon, with sticky-sweet watermelon dripping down my face, I could finally savor my finest hour as a man. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|