I jumped.
I fought my way into the wind; across the cobblestones of a village where women stood talking to the garbage man I chased the riders in front of me, past the shuttered cafe, around corners where old Belgians with red-rimmed signs stood waiting. On straight, muck-filled stretches of road I’d sometimes see all these clusters of riders at the same time. They started blending together. Me on my own, against all of them. I bend to the bars in a cramp of exertion. Everything, give it everything. Just a little more. Every once in a while I raised my head. Each time I saw that I was a little closer. But I wasn’t there yet, I had to go on. I couldn’t do it any more, but I had to go on. Body and spirit shook hands and moved to their corners. I looked: closer once more. But still a gap. Suddenly I realized that I’d been wrong: I would never make it by any normal means. I had extremely simple choice of either giving up or going straight through everything that was me. I went through. I’d never drawn that deeply on myself; I was way past the point where I’d crack before. There was no turning back. And every time I looked up, I was closer. I could already smell the cozy, soothing odor of balsam on their legs. I wanted to shout to them: ”Wait for me!”. My whole life has been reduced to only one goal: making the last wheel, here, now. I was wasted. I coughed and slobbered. I remembered the words of advice: “Shift, when you’re really, truly at the end of your rope, to a higher gear.” I shifted. A few hysterical kicks on the thirteen, the clenched power of mortal struggle. I was there. I was sitting on that last wheel. I was in the lead group.
I was in the lead group for one sweep of the cranks, then I was dumped. The blind wall of wind was there again for me alone. What kind of nonsense is this? I thought, then the lights went out.
The Rider
by Tim Krabbe
