Many of you have seen a post I put on my Instagram and Facebook of me riding up Law Lane in Bloomington, Indiana. What most of you don’t know is this was not just another hill for me to climb. The ride up Law Lane has been a story 28 years in the making.
See this if you will, a young man of 19 stopping in a bike shop in Bloomington, Indiana on his way home from Louisville. He buys his second Mountain Bike. Unfortunately, some asshole had stolen his first Mountain Bike out of the basement of his fraternity house. Joel his friend helps him pick out a nice purple bike for riding to class come the next fall. It’s a nice Cannondale.
Let’s fast forward a few months now to the fall of his sophomore year. He is very excited about his purple bike, Grimace if you will, because we know this man, even back then when he was young like to name his bikes. He heads out onto campus to ride to class. He likes it. Sure, is a lot faster than walking. The only issue is to get back to the house, he must take Law Lane. OK, so there are other ways to go but that adds onto the ride and see the young man at this point is well sort of lazy and doesn’t want to do that. Also, the other ways are very busy, and he is a little afraid to ride on the streets. So, he heads to Law Lane.
He hates Law Lane because in his mind it is only the lane itself, it is the hills that stretch across the tundra that backs up to Eagleson from Fee Lane. He considers it all part of Law Lane. If you ever happen to be on campus with this man, he will tell you horror stories of his freshman year and walking from the House at 1215 to the dorms on the other side of the tundra. How those hills would eat him alive each night. No matter how many times he walked back to Foster Martin. No matter how careful he was. When he started going down the hills, he would inevitably slip and he could slide down the hill, though patches of mud and muck and get himself filthy. It became a running joke with his mates as they would wait and watch as he tried to get down without making a fool of himself. It rarely ever happened. He was a victim of Law Lawn and that godforsaken tundra.
This day long ago on Grimace it would be no different. See the young man didn’t understand how to use his gears. He was out of shape and smoked a lot of cigarettes back then. Mmm! Camels! However, he was going to give it the ole college try. So, he started up. He panicked when it got a little hard and shifted down to the lowest setting, he thought he could find, not really knowing if he was in Granny or not. When he started spinning faster with his feet and not really feeling the bike move, he quickly gave up and got off the bike and walked it up the hill. This wouldn’t be the last time he walked a hill, far from it, but it was the last time he walked a hill with Grimace. See, he did what any rational young man would do with a nice mountain bike. He put it in the bike room and left it until he went home for the summer and left in Terre Haute until 2008. Yes, you heard me right, until 2008. He would literally go almost 12 years without riding that bike. All because Law Lane kicked his ass once again.
Over the 28 years and multiple climbs on Grimace, Master Fuji, and Cylon, the hill on Law Lane grew into mythical status in the man’s (no longer quite so young) mind. When he thought of the hill at Law Lane, he imaged Climbing Mount Diablo, or Del Valle. His mind had made him believe that Law Lane was a climb only legends of the bike can do. Funny, how the mind can do things like that.
Since returning to Bloomington, he had probably driven it once or twice but it was the heart of winter and he was touring people around and he didn’t think about the hill, not really. However, as the weather changed and winter turned to spring and he started getting outside on his bike, he was determined to return to campus and ride up Law Lane. Even when the Beav arrived, he took him to show him the treacherous hill at Law Lane and when they got there, he and the Beav were like, “Where’s the Beef?”.
The hill at Law Lane wasn’t quite the mountain I had imagined in my mind. Sitting at the bottom of it, in Nebula, I was like, um, maybe this isn’t really what I had made it out to be. I was like I have no idea why I was so scared of this hill. I have walked the streets of San Francisco regularly; I have 3 or 4 half marathons under my belt in the City. So, I know a hill when I see one and this just didn’t cut the mustard.
However, I was determined to go up it anyway. Call it crossing something off the ole bucket list. Call it revenge for the falling, and I mean falling literally as in down the hill so many years ago and so many pairs of jeans and khakis caked in mud. Deep breath, let it go, let it go.
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