Reach for the Sky

Race day one; I again awoke with a start right before my alarm began to ring, and practically expelled myself from the double bed I had shared with Travis in the mad dash to get to the bathroom first - a mad dash I participated in alone. I could hear Godfrey and Bell complaining loudly from the other bed as I searched for my sports bra, socks and underwear in the gear bag, allowing my phone’s alarm to ring for as long as possible in order to maximize wake-ization. I hopped into the shower, leaving the boys to brush their teeth in the sink outside the bathroom, which was built into the wall of the room.

“Scottie? I need to use the toilet,” It was a weak voice, and I was surprised I could hear it over the steaming pressure of the water.

“It’s unlocked. No peeking.”

A moment later, as I propped my leg up on the wall to shave, I heard a retching sound right outside the curtain; I yanked it aside to see Travis neck-deep in the toilet.

“Travis? Are you alright?” It wasn’t difficult to hide my body behind the curtain, and it wasn‘t like he had prying eyes with his forehead pressed against the porcelain around the edge of the toilet bowl.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Did you eat something wrong? Are you nervous?” He held up a finger and stuck his head back into the bowl, which prompted me to begin shaving once more. After a few minutes, I squeezed the moisture from breast-length red hair behind the curtain, listening for a response. “Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked, pulling the sports bra and underwear on in the shower before I stepped out onto the floor mat. Travis sat with his cheek pressed up against the cold tile of the bathroom wall, looking for all the world as if he had passed out.

“Travis? Travis!” He looked up at me groggily, as Andy Bell blew past the both of us (with a few second glances at me in my black underwear). “For real, Trav? Get up! We’ve got an Enduro to kick ass in!” I reached out a hand to him and helped lean the hundred and eighty five pound man against the sink so he could brush his teeth while I brushed mine, and applied copious amounts of deodorant (which I tossed in my backpack after a moment’s thought).

“Sorry, I just got such bad nerves all of the sudden. I don’t ever get scared like that,”

“At least you’ll admit it,” I said, sitting on the bed to pull a pair of motocross socks up to my knees as Andy Bell walked out wrapped in a towel.

“Oh that’s hot, Sweet Cheeks. Can we take pictures now?”

“Shut up, Bell. Get Godfrey up,” I motioned to the sleeping form of the “king” of endurocross as I pulled a pair of blue riding pants over the motocross socks. Greggg began to move as I began the painstaking process of tying back my hair in a secure manner - normally, when I knew I would only have my helmet on for a few minutes at a time I would simply let my long hair hang loose, but since it needed to be under my helmet all day, I French-braided and pinned the braid on top of itself in a little bun. The addition of a hair band kept my bangs out of my face, and by the time I had finished the procedure, the boys were ready to head downstairs for the “Red Bull roManiacs Meeting;” which was to be a precursor to the first day of riding.

“You ready for this now?” I asked Travis as I shouldered my bag, to which my chest protector and shirt were strapped, and picked up my helmet in one hand and packed gear bag in the other. The gear bag would be left with the service car and it’s motley crew.

“I don’t know what came over me. I’m fine now though.” Travis slung his chest protector easily over his broad shoulders and offered to carry my pack in his free hands.

“I got it, I can carry heavy things some times!”

“You’ll be carrying plenty of heavy things during the race. Like me. So don‘t complain when you‘re carrying me, my bike and your bike over the finish line, right?” He grabbed the bag out of my hand with ease, and left me to pout while looking useless in my un-strapped boots and sports bra; so I snatched his chest protector and shirt from his shoulder. We trudged into the meeting at 7AM, were handed a GPS and a “mini tracker,” taught how to use them, and were told that the course was programmed into the GPS already. Flares and a first-aid kit joined the GPS and tracker in my water backpack, and we were released for a half an hour of breakfast.

“Oh God, this is like our last meal,” I said to the guys. Godfrey and Bell were on their own, and there was a good chance we weren’t going to see Tenacious J and Streetbike Tommy until tonight when we got to the next hotel. We scarfed in silence - there was only a half hour before race time, and I still had to go out and run a systems check on my bike, fill my water bag and get to the starting line.

Travis and I left the table together, practically jogging out into the humidity of Romania to check the bikes. I filled our camel packs from a barrel of water set out for that purpose, slammed half a Red Bull (which were also left out for that purpose) and I stuffed a few of the cans into the backpacks before I brought them back to Travis.

“Want the rest of this?” Travis gladly took the slim can from me as he shouldered his pack, and I took over looking over the bikes. System’s check complete, I pulled a jersey over my head, then a chest protector. Even though the body armor was tight to my chest, Travis still had to hold my backpack for me so I could get my arms through its shoulder straps.

“Are you ready for this?” He asked, thumping a gloved hand down on my helmet.

“I mean, if you don’t give me a concussion first, I’m gold!” I laughed, and poked him in the stomach. In silence, we rode to the starting line and began our own private rituals - Travis's apparently included a lot of self-cheerleading, and mine included a lot of stretching. We bumped fists as our class began to fill in around us, and engines began to rev in preparation for our start.

“Meet you in the woods, Sweet Cheeks.”

“I’ll wait for you, Gimpy.” I joked, and smacked the back of his helmet from atop my bike - one which was considerably smaller than my competition’s.

The gun started just as I started the engine, and I let the jump of releasing the clutch carry me near to the holeshot - which Travis somehow won. It would have been virtually impossible to take the holeshot on a 250 and I barely managed to get out of the start without getting caught up in the crash zone. The first obstacle, however, nearly made me pee my pants - it was a pit of tires, followed by a small open area, followed by another pit of tires. Ahead, I could see three bikes stuck in the open with tires stuck around their front wheels. I chose to jump over as many of the tires as possible, and ended up in the center alright, and proceeded past the plethora of bikes with tires stuck over their front wheels, and almost flipped over into the second set of tires as I tried to wheelie into a bunny hop over them as I had before.

A series of really tough obstacles awaited me before I could finally meet Travis at the woods and begin the rest of the enduro (nearly all of it except half the last day was through the woods). There was a fifteen-foot-high “wall” of plywood one had to go up and over, a section of chunks of wood similar to the tire sections, a second tire section with a slightly different layout, a ramp onto another ramp which cross over the top of a fuel truck down another ramp, logs laid out so that when one jumped over one they would land square on another one and get hung up, a jump made out of tires, a five-foot drop in the concrete down into a dip where one would have to jump out on their own, a jump up into a building where one would take the stairs all the way to the top, at which point they would have to take the stairs down again, and then finally a flight of stairs up into the woods. It was as exhaustively long as the sentence I would have used to describe them

By the time I finally got to the stretch of grass and tents proceeding the woods, I was battered and bruised and beyond exhausted; but the ever-smiling face of TP and a can of Red Bull lightened my spirits and caused the insanity to kick back in. Together, we made our way into the forest, and the blistering heat of midday in Romania. The going was good until we actually got to the woods - and found that the terrain was more like a mountain and less like a forest.

That’s when the falling began. After a while, it seemed as if I couldn’t hold myself up any more - I slid down a hill climb behind the bike on my ass, Travis collided with the side of my bike accidentally as I tried to get my front tire out from where it was wedged between two rocks and nearly broke my leg, and I laid my leg (and pants) open on a sharp-looking rock embedded in a stream bed.

“Jesus Scottie, are you alright?” Pastrana had taken off his shirt after his first fall (the only one I had seen because he rode behind me); he dropped his bike against a tree and ran across the water to help me pick up the bike. I pulled off my helmet as he pulled the bike the rest of the way across the stream, and sat with my back against a tree.

“I just need a minute… Can you help me get my first-aid kit out?” He reached into my backpack and pulled the little red box out and opened it on my lap.

“Let me see it,” With a grunt, I leaned over and pulled the hole in my pants open so Travis could address the wound on my thigh. “Ah, shit Scottie. That’s deep. That needs stitches. You’re going to have to help me dress it, ‘cause I’m not sticking my hands in your pant leg.” We hadn’t seen a single person on the trail for miles, which was cause for wonder but apparently wasn’t very strange for RoManiacs (we had asked at the last “pit stop,” and the people manning it had shrugged and said it wasn’t worth comment, we were just fast or dedicated or both).

“It doesn’t matter. I can make it to the end of today.”

“Sweetie, that’s an enormous, gaping wound. I need to wrap it up at least.” Travis placed the mouthpiece of my water pack in my mouth and forced me to suck some of it down. “Scottie, you’re shaking. Come on, let me dress it.” I began to unzip my riding pants, unbuckling the little clasp which cinched the waist.

“I’m wearing shorts,” I commented, as his expression went from worried to almost shocked. He dug through the red box to find bandages, before he pulled off his bags and found his kit and bandages as well. “You have some experience with this, don’t you?” I asked, as he dabbed rubbing alcohol on the edges of the wound and winced when he dumped the burning liquid into the cut. “Ah, shit.”

“Sorry.” He placed gauze over the thing and began to wrap it with the bandages as I avoided looking down at my leg. “All set, let’s finish this thing. Come on, up you go,” Travis grabbed me by the armpits and helped me to do up my pants again.

“I’m fine, I can do this.”

We limped all the way to the last check-in, and managed to finish fourth for the day.