The best one yet

My sister’s wish for my birthday came true; “I hope a dry day for you!”. After the tarp and tent survived the storm, I woke dry and warm. I smiled in my slow morning, hidden in the shrubs beside the coastal road, in my home, eating oats with nuts, peanut butter and apricot, sipping bitter camp coffee. My birthday would have been lonely without my adventure. My bicycle propped on a stone fence awaiting. It already felt like the best one yet.

27km to the ferry, sandals and smiles, downhills, blue seas, white islands rugged. A 10:15am beer and a call to home, over to Pag Island, where a man who cycled from Croatia to Paris in 16 days tells me I’ll likely not make it to beers in Zadar tonight, hills and hills and hills all that the 75km will be. It already felt like the best one yet.

The road up from the Ziglen ferry was a new planet to my eyes, littered with white rocks & brittle salt shrubs, the mainland of Croatia a towering babel mountaim range across the sea. Roaring down hills, roaring up them, then flat roads of nothing but stone fences, sheep and brittle salt shrubs. A quick stop and barely a thumb out and soon Ivan (yes I know, be wary of men named Ivan offering you lifts) was helping me put my bicycle and I in his van. Those ten minutes may have done more for me than I’d ever know. After lunch by the docks, the winds grew stronger, leave now don’t linger any longer. Something behind is strong, is something within stronger? Leave now, don’t linger any longer. It already felt like the best one yet.

Darkness soon begins it’s chase, 50km BEGIN the race, squealing as I felt the suck of the storm. For the next 2 hours, all I could do was look up and back and around frantically with each pedal, as the clear skies of my direction were slowly gobbled up, I felt at the very edge of good and evil. Not a stormer chaser but a storm runner; who was ever calm before a storm? It was almost torture. It was the fastest I’ve ever ridden. Crossing a bridge, the first bolts fall, jelly fish like clouds dancing, tendrils whipping land & sea, the swirling grain of apocalypse sky I’ll surely not forget. Storm runner. It already felt like the best one yet.

Just before the first tears fell, 20km all that remains, I hide between the pallets, everything thunders, all clear skies engulfed, let digestion begin to grin, and I’m caught, though I can’t feel the net. I couldn’t remember watching a sun set through a storm, an amber dull over there, deep purple with violent sniggers of electric neon blue over here, wedged smiling between the pallets and I’m caught, though I can’t feel the net. It already felt like the best one yet.

20km is nothing, this young buck proclaims, saddle again in shorts and sandals, I’m tougher than this rain, 3 more hills till a beer, but darkness has eaten all there was to swallow. Riding in apocalypse felt like an eternity, felt like one uphill one down, up down, on and on, now it’s stupid amd dumb, but this is when the war cries begin, even in hell I’d still have fun. The only way out is out, and then this stupid invincible buck begins to scream and shout, at the end of one lung apocalypse sky screams and crackles back, shivers of that forking dance, manic laughter all that I can unpack. Not a storm chaser, not a storm runner, just a wet idiot on wheels. So I made it, sat in a bar, met with friends, dazed, now a soft spittle all that’s left of her, ambled the stoned streets, doubled my 2 euros, then lost it all on black in sweet roulette. Fairly fucking certain it felt like the best one ever yet.