When we ride I guess we crash, been there.
Hope no broken bones
Feel better
Love to M
(How is she doing?)
Luv Cancer Fighter Poplak
Several days before I send this piece to my editors, I go down on the stretch of road that abuts Johannesburg airport’s main runway. I crank down on my pedals chasing a break, and my chain pops off my rear derailleur, sending me into the tarmac at almost forty-kilometres an hour. Behind me as I slide, I hear the unmistakable song of carbon fibre and bodies punching into the road. For one exquisite moment before the pain kicks in, a jetliner cruises so low above me it seems as if I could run my fingers along its fuselage. I look over at the mess I made and think: Bjarne Riis, my father, Lance Armstrong, Carlos Sastre, my wife, all of us at some point end up on our backs in the road, united in agony. Planes landing and cyclists moaning and cars honking—the sport is never purer than it is in this moment, in these seconds of ersatz war-borne carnage. EPO can do nothing for us down here.
I get up, check for broken bones, readjust my shredded kit, examine the bright white circle of kneecap peeking through damaged skin. My hip throbs, and I know from experience that if I don’t want it to seize up and keep me off the bike for weeks, I need to get back on and ride the twenty kilometres home. I gingerly lift my leg over the top tube and click my cleat into the pedal.
Janine, Janine, Janine, I think, and start cycling.