With both hands clutched on my handle bars to keep the bike upright and a chocolate power bar sticking out of my mouth, I descended the steepest section of the bridge at 45 mph while Pelicans dive bombed me from all angles. Each God Damn bird would fly in for a peck on the Power Bar and with each bite, they would drive me closer and closer to the edge of the bridge. When a swooping bird would miss the Power Bar, they would drop a white foul smelling "surprise" somewhere on me or my bike. It was really unpleasant when this "surprise" was deposited on my front tire. With each wheel revolution the moist Pelican Doo Doo would be flipped directly up into my face over and over again. Soon my Oakley's were splattered with so much Doo-Doo that I was having a hard time seeing the pack of riders I was wheelsucking off of. Never letting up for a second, the bastard birds dive bombed me continually, till finally a big old brown male missed the power bar and stuck his 3 foot bill into the Styrofoam core of my Bell Helmet. With this bird now sticking straight out of the side of my head, wings flapping madly and more white ooze being deposited directly on my neck and shoulders, I rode wildly back and forth across both lanes on the causeway bridge. I did my best to avoid the large truck full of Texas ripened grapefruit, but when it swerved to miss me and rolled over on it's side, spilling 150,000 grapefruit at the top of the bridge, I and several other riders had to really hammer to stay in front of this rushing wall of yellow grapefruit. I saw one poor women on a purple Trek 2300, get over taken and swallowed by the oncoming wall of fruit. For awhile she was upright and riding on top of rolling grapefruit, but then lost her balance and went down in an avalanche of fruit. Several of the larger "Texas Ruby Reds" hit her in the head and knocked her unconscious, before she was completely covered. The other riders and I formed a pace line to try and out run the fruit. I, of course, was at my usual spot at the rear and soon found myself being dropped by the pack. When I lost the advantage of their draft, the fruit began to overtake me!
Texas Trip
Last Updated @ 7:43 PM on 6/30/96
By Don TRUE - Copyright © 1994 - All Rights Reserved