He watches the man’s hand shake as he points at the clerks, listening to the people around him screaming, frantic to leave. The man's face is covered by what appears to be some sort of winter beanie stretched to it's limits.
"ATTICA!!" He yells.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PFlQxABLoM"]“ATTICA!!”[/ame]
Suddenly, an alarm goes off, but it’s unlike anything he would expect in a bank lobby. He wonders, “I thought they have silent alarms?”
______________________________
He jolts upright in his bad to find his cellphone screaming at him, the same alarm as the one from the bank. Reaching over, he catches a blurry glance of the phone screen – 0553. He set his phone to military time so that it’s easier to stay in the habit for work related purposes. The air around him is cold, the bedding warm, and getting out of bed is the last thing he wants to do. In an instant, he remembers, and it’s time to get out of bed.
0736. After showering and checking his gear and equipment, it is time to hit the road. He is meeting up with Tim, a friend from the forum who’s been helping him since day 1 on many different things, as well as Erik, someone else he has always seen around in different posts, and looked forward to meeting at Tim’s house. The plan is to meetup, do final running checks, and hit the road to Hico for Pie.
0813. He shows up at Tim’s house, but something’s wrong – Tim’s bike isn’t outside, he’s at the wrong address, or he was late to the party. What if something happened? What if he didn’t get the memo that the pie run was just a complex, in-depth ploy to ambush him at his most vulnerable and steal his bike and all his money? He had just recently bought a full SENA kit after all – most people would kill for a free helmet Bluetooth kit. What if – oh. After pulling further down the street, he sees Tim tinkering with his bike, and decides to pull up next to him. “Oh, Erik?” Tim says. He doesn’t respond for a second. Did he just ask if he aired it – did he wear it? What did Tim say? Tim repeats himself. “Erik?” A moment of mutual confusion is shared. Did a random motorist just pull into his driveway? Mind still stuck in first gear, he finally makes the connection that Tim thinks him to be Erik. “Oh! No, it’s Humzah – Alpine Ridge”. After a few minutes of admiring Alpine’s ride, they head inside for a quick cup of coffee and a short chat about life in general. However, Alpine respectfully declines the coffee – he doesn’t ever really feel the effects of coffee and doesn’t see the point in it personally, yet also hopes it doesn’t offend Tim.
Erik shows up, looking about as ready to hit the road as an F1 racer walking to their car, balaclava and all. Formal exchanges are made, with the ever important screen-name questions pointed out. The route is discussed, and Tim leads the way to Hico at 0830.
This is the first time Alpine has ever ridden with another motorist for anything, much less two motorists. Sure, he passes by them and does the little two finger low hold salute to feel cool, but the thrill – the feeling of being – it’s different in a group ride. He feels like he’s in a carbureted dream.
Tim knows his maps well, and leads the ride through a series of scenic lookouts and many, many curvy roads. The ride is one to not be forgotten. He notices early in the ride that Tim is a very careful leader – he adjusts his speed when needed, looks back every few minutes to make sure he can see his group, and considers his group’s positions on the road when they need to change lanes. All in all, it was a smooth, enjoyable ride to the Koffee Kup. About 1 hour into the ride, the group pulls over to do a general well check and to make sure everyone is doing ok. All is well, and back on route they go – until Alpine’s bike dies. While shifting gears up, he notices that his bike just lurched forward, something that has never happened to him while shifting up. Figuring it to just be a short skip somewhere in the system that he probably has no mechanical knowledge of, he tries throttling up to catch up to Tim, when he now notices that his throttle is no longer working either, but he is still rolling, causing him to be mildly disconcerted.
He starts questioning if he throttled too quickly and possibly burned out the transmission. He’s gotta figure this out fast. Looking down at his instrument cluster now, his stomach drops into his boots as he realizes that the Tachometer is showing to be 0RPM’s. Alpine is now in a full blown panic and can’t figure out what’s wrong – he still has electrical power because his high beam indicator is lit, his keys are in the correct position, and the kill switch isn’t engaged. Slapping his right turn indicator on and attempting to scurry onto the right shoulder, just as quickly as his bike died, it roared back to life. He lifts up his visor and ducks beneath the windshield to listen to the engine as best as he could. It doesn’t sound like it normally does at this speed, but it doesn’t sound like anything blew up inside either. This is definitely something to check out once he gets back home, but for now, he wants to get to Hico and eat some Pie.
Right around halfway to the destination, Alpine’s butt is starting to hurt. This isn’t the average pain of sitting for a long time, but the pain of sitting on a seat on an open vehicle going 65MPH+, with wind gusts that are trying to push you off the road so that you can hug a tree or fence post. His solutions aren’t very effective. Standing slightly only temporarily alleviates the pain until you sit down again, and being 6’1”, putting your feet down off the pegs leaves you with only so much more legroom and drags your boots on the road.
More astounding scenery is passed and small, historical towns driven through. This is a good time to think about things. Being away from family and the constraints of city and internet life even if just for a few hours, as cliché as it sounds, provides a while to think to one’s self and reflect on their life. It’s only you, your own thoughts, and the wind that’s killing your hearing by the minute. Alpine would know – his helmet whistled at him the whole way to eat pie. If he had not known better, he would have thought there was a girl as a passenger on his bike doing the classic wolf whistle at him, although when was the last time a girl ever whistled at a guy? Alpine was now sad.
The group was making good time. In fact, they arrived at the Koffee Kup at around 1020. Rolling up, there were maybe 6 or 7 other people that were already there. Cordialities were followed, and inside the group headed to finally rest their butts and stuff their faces with pie. Plans changed, and rather than having pie like intended, breakfast was taken advantage of instead. This gave them a good reason to come back to the Koffee Kup in the future for pie again. Eventually, Alpine had finally been able to put faces to names from the forum – DFWTom, MrRoboto, Tourmeister, DaveC, Lynyrd, Liteitup, M38A1, Focus Frenzy, Mr2Mch, Gravel Guy, Crew Chief, Rsquared, Woodsguy, Beemerless Bob (even though Alpine failed to recognize it was him until now), and others, to name a few.
After about an hour and a half of drooling over bikes and talking to people, it was agreed upon that it was now time to head back home. The ride back was like any other time travelling back home – the high, the pinnacle of the trip, was over. The ride home is sad, uneventful, and with a longing for another trip already, even while fidgeting on the seat for a comfortable riding position, sure that a butt has been turned to steel.
It was a long time coming, but for his first major TWT event, Alpine had unforgettable fun, and longs to join in on another event so long as his work schedule permits it.