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OUR MAN IN ENGLAND: SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND
Austin Curwen
December 4, 2008
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Like many defining moments in ones life, who doesn’t remember the exact place they were when they watched the grand finale of Brain DePalma’s cinematic masterpiece Scarface. I remember watching the crazed, paranoid, drug-fueled Tony Montana realize that he was being slowly surrounded in his inner sanctum. Thinking quickly, he fell back on what he knew, a brutal and reckless show of strength as he blazed away with his M16A1 assault rifle (with attached M203 40mm grenade launcher) uttering his now infamous line, “Say hello to my little friend.” It was indeed the nexus of fear and release, strength and the will to keep going on- no matter what the cost.
It was with that same trepidation that a strange box arrived at my house about 3 weeks ago. Being a completely spoiled SoCal rider, we ride all year long, and it is not unusual for us to ride in jerseys on occasion when opposite us, Buffalo is getting 15 more feet of snow. However this is not the case in the UK (yes, yes I know…… duh…), and my acclimation here has largely been fine, but between the wind, rain, threats of wind and rain, and shrinking daylight hours, I thought I needed to branch out a bit and I bought a trainer (or turbo- as the folks here say). Spin class has long been a part of my winter routine. I have spent countless hours in the early mornings churning away to the prompts, heckles and encouragement of first Quannah (yes- that is his real name) and lately Brooke. And while I don’t love spin class, I like it enough to leave the house at 5:20 a.m. at least once or twice a week, pedal furiously, sweat profusely, wonder why some people bob around like over-caffeinated monkeys during climbing, and endure the stimulating musical pastiche we strain to hear over.
The box sat for a day or so as I adjusted to the idea that I was about to organize my own spin class. This was a moderately daunting proposition, made more to by the tractor-beam like pull of the turbo. It was calling to me, beckoning me, and to a degree taunting me. So out of the box, I looked for a place to set up the infernal device. Alas our digs for the year have mostly wall-to-wall carpets. I ultimately set up in the only other room that had a linoleum floor to create my own thunderdome velodrome!
These days, I do “say hello to my little friend.” It waits for me, patiently lurking in the corner of the velodrome affecting a posture somewhere between a hopeful cocker spaniel and a hungry cobra- lots of potential energy waiting to be released. After lashing in the bike, it’s off we go to the dulcet strains of my local power-pop radio station. My current torture of choice is intervals. 30 seconds on, then recover for 30 seconds, seemingly endlessly. All the while, I am visualizing myself reeling in yet another rider in my local TT/ crit/ group ride with the lads. On those rare occasions when that strange bluish hue takes over the sky and that odd golden orb floats above us, it’s auf weidersehen velodrome and hello pavement, but in the end, I think I will be spending a good deal of time this winter with my new little friend.
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