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13 An Intimate Account of the Redwood Run Our First Year “There’s nothing like the real thing.” I awake with serious nausea and a sharp sense of things gone wrong. Check out Ken, no problem there. He snorts in oblivion. Roll out of bed with the stiffness of having lived too many inactive years and curse my laziness. Check the cats, the house, and the phone. No cat shit, no break-ins, and no callers. Something’s wrong, I’m just not sure what it is. The sun is up and out. The day is dry. It is a day made for riding. Memory hits. Damn, I had prayed for rain. I wanted Frisco hit. I wanted to revel in the biggest baddest rainstorm in creation. I wanted the rain to obliterate all traces of outdoor life. I wanted unrelenting fury. I wanted rain rage. Anything to keep me off the bike. Anything to keep us from riding. This day of my first Redwood Run starts out hot and healthy. I start out sick and scared. Even before Ken can focus his eyes, I have mentally gone over every plausible excuse for not going. Why am I about to jump on the back of a bike and stuff my rear into an open seat going seventy-five miles an hour down a sun-blinded highway, when I could be comfortably reading a book at home? Redwood Run is a long two hundred mile trip. The body starts to ache, sag, pound, blister, and stink. Everything hurts. And that’s before you factor in fear. It’s the fear that wakes me up early. It’s the fear that keeps me praying for rain. It’s the fear that makes me sick. But it’s my fury at that fear that keeps me on the bike. Fuck the fear—I will ride. 211 Jamming the Wind Despite the odds, despite sanity and reason, I will ride behind Ken today. We will ride to Garberville and participate in Redwood Run. I’ll be OK just so long as we stay away from the pit. It’s hard to rouse Ken, and the morning bagels taste like straw. The juice is bitter and watery with tiny clumps of pulp. Ken puts up toast instead, and I dump the bagels and juice. Considering all the gear I have to wear, a light breakfast sits better. Jeans, chaps, jacket, vest, boots, goggles, and cap get jammed, tucked, and pulled over my body. Everything is brown leather, including even the pointy brown hat that resembles nothing so much as a German World War I army helmet. The hat is soft and supple. No skid lid is yet required. This is to be our first Redwood Run. It will be the last one we will attend without brain buckets. The following winter, Dick Floyd will pass his helmet law through the California legislature and Pete Wilson will sign it. Helmet hatred goes deep. Resentment of authority goes even deeper. This is going to be the last chance to ride bareheaded through redwood mountain country. Freedom’s last gasp! On this day, our heads are covered with leather. As the day warms, headgear will change to neckerchiefs, worn bandito style around our foreheads. As the wind whips up, another handkerchief will be pulled across the face—bank-robber fashion—and knotted in back. This will keep out the bugs, the road grit, and the sun. By day’s end, only our eyes will be showing. I’ve crammed my gear into the saddlebags. I’ve got water, food, shampoo, and toilet paper. But am I psyched enough for this trip? We barely know the guys we’re riding with. Can I trust them on the road? Are the bikes in good enough shape? Will there be enough bathroom stops? All the past fears and uncertainties crowd back into my mind. And for a second, terror returns. To calm myself, I think about all the runs in our lives. I have loved them all and lived to tell about them. But Redwood Run, at this point, is still a mystery for me. I expect to party and visit. I expect adventure. The pit, Redwood Run’s infamous attraction, is the only place I expect to avoid. Whenever a run lasts more than a day, clothes, tents, food, and bike tools must be figured into the trip. What to wear simplifies down to, What do I need and will...

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