The engineer who designed Ferguson’s bicycle had spent considerable time making it light and easy to take apart. He’d given much less thought to making it easy to pedal and probably no thought at all to making it comfortable.
Ferguson’s legs felt as if they would fall off after about five miles. By the eighth, he’d lost all sensation in his lower back. There was barely enough light to see the road in front of him, and though he’d put on extra clothes, he was so cold his bones felt like ice.
But he kept pedaling, and the closer he got to the airstrip—he estimated the distance using his watch—the more confident he felt.
It’s delirium, he told himself. Then he started to laugh.
About three guffaws later, the front wheel of the bike hit a pothole, and he found himself flying through the air.