Lestat

Lestat

As I wrote in the preceding post ("Silver Blaze"), bicycles, while not organic entities, do possess personality, at least our favorite ones do. That personality is determined by a combination of our own natural impulse to humanize inorganic entities (see anthropomorphism) and the bicycle's own characteristics, ranging from color to tubing, from tire size to handlebar tape. With a nickname, the bicycle assumes a new "subject position" (see interpellation) in the rider's life. It's no longer just a beater in the backyard but, say, Kerouac, and with that name change your rides on Kerouac begin to resemble prose-poem associations on ceaseless pavement. Kerouac is no longer a metal or carbon machine; it's a co-writer of journeys composed on any type of scrolling road. Often the bike manufacturer inadvertently helps you think of a nickname by naming the model. Thus, a Rivendell Sam Hillborne could well be christened Hill-on-Wheels. I'd have to own one, ride it first, before settling on something as important as a nickname.

Kerouac. I like it. It would be a great line for a company whose "bespoke" bikes are designed for improvised (de)touring. 

... 

Lestat was a Specialized Stumpjumper, rigid, steel. I bought it, my first mountain bike, stock from a store in Columbia, South Carolina. Its red paint put me in mind of the Anne Rice protagonist in Interview with the Vampire, the book that revived the theme of vampirism (immortality combined with thrice-daily erotic fulfillment) for modern audiences coping with mortality and less reliable opportunities for said erotic fulfillment. The gray tires and silver components helped to bring out the frame’s carmine hue.

Lestat was swift, handled like a vampire’s love-dream, took bumps in stride, and was gorgeous. I’ve never owned a better mountain bike. Yet it fell victim to my dumb decision to trade “up” to a full-suspension bike (to be described in a future post). Actually, there was one good reason to trade it. At 18” it was too big for me. It’s hard to size your first mountain bike, especially with a salesman telling you how well it fits. How can the novice customer possibly judge the fit by riding it once around the city block? Being dressed like a grunge rocker doesn’t make a bicycle salesman any less prone to the tactics of cajolery. He was probably working on commission.

A endo crash on Lestat landed me in the emergency room with a concussion caused by speeding into a see-it-at-the-last-second steel cable stretched across a fire road. My wife came home from work and found me groaning flat-back on the front porch. I don’t know how I made it home. The crash could have been a lot worse because I had landed on my neck. To this day I thank God for sparing me the worst.

My wife took me, dazed, my shoulder-joint screaming, to the hospital. I remember a radiant African-American nurse leaning over me to adjust something. Her scrubs were angel-white. I reached for her, trying to pull her down, cooing words of love. She laughed and continued to adjust. Patients must have hit on her all the time. The concussion had wiped out my sense of proper behavior. That’s my defense. But truth to tell, her face and (you fill in the rest) almost made the crash worth it.

Lestat is the first bike upon which I put clipless pedals (Onzas). I drove far down a sandy fire road in a local forest, parked, lifted my shiny new bike out of the truck bed, looked around, and said, okay, here we go, time to practice attach/release on the soft surface. I clicked in the left sole, swung the right leg over, clicked the right shoe in, sat in the saddle, tried to pedal, felt resistance. The wheel caught and I tumbled over, pushing my brand new blood-red bike into the sand. The abrasion left its mark all along the top tube. I hadn't traveled an inch. When I left two hours later, I had clipless down forever.

Vampires siphon off blood; Lestat drank up miles. He was an insatiable machine with an owner sharing the same addiction.

Roadysseus

11.26.14