It was the summer of 1986. July to be exact. I don't recall the exact day, though I do remember it was right after Greg LeMond captured his first Tour de France victory. He was the first American to do so, and his win sparked a surge in road bike sales, just as Lance Armstrong's first Tour win would over a decade later. At last, young cyclists such as myself had an American hero who could not only compete with the best European riders, but beat them at their own game.
LeMond turned twenty-five that summer, same as me. In fact, our birthdays were just days apart. Like him, I even had a French last name, Couture. Also like him, I had a passion for riding bicycles, though he took his passion to a level I'd never see. I thought that because we were both the same height (five-foot-ten) and similar in build, I might be able to at least approach his prowess in the saddle, discounting the fact that he possessed a Herculean VO2 max, where mine was just average. I was what you'd call a serious recreational rider. In season, I'd ride over one-hundred miles a week, sometimes in a group, other times solo.
It was a heady time for me. I was starting a career as a physical therapist and had just purchased my first house, an Eisenhower era, brick semi-detached in a solidly middle-class neighborhood called Glen Keith Village. Nothing fancy, but it was a start. Money was tight, so I learned to do my own bike maintenance on my all-steel celeste Bianchi. Weather permitting, I did the work in my backyard, a small, square plot of land, bordered by fencing.
And that's where I first met a girl named Tiffany. I was on the lawn, adjusting my breaks, my back turned to the street, when I heard a female voice say, "Excuse me." When I turned around, she said, "Don't mean to bother you, but I've seen you out here before, working on your bike and I thought maybe you could help me with mine."
She stood next to a blue Raleigh road bike dressed in shorts, a sleeveless top and tennis shoes. As noted, I'd never seen her before, because if I had, I would have remembered. I didn't easily forget girls who looked like Tiffany. From her thick, dirty-blond hair, flowing past her shoulders, to her prominent cheek bones and aquamarine eyes, the girl gave me pause. "Sure," I said, trying not to look too eager. "Let's have a look."
She rolled the Raleigh onto my lawn and spun the rear wheel. "See, it's all wobbly."
"Looks like it's out of tru," I said. "Did you have an accident?" She described her encounter with a curb. "That will do it." For the next few minutes, I did some spoke adjusting to where the wheel was almost totally straight. "There's no such thing as a perfect tru. Anyway, you should be good to go."
She smiled and thanked me, then asked if I was "new to the neighborhood." When I told her yes, she revealed that she had lived in Glen Keith Village for most of her nineteen years. She lived with her divorced mom, went to school, studying to be a medical technician and also worked part time as a medical secretary. She took up cycling, she said, "because I can stand to lose a few pounds." Buff she wasn't, but neither was she fat. Chunky is the way I saw her, heavy in the thighs and butt. Looks-wise, I went for the more svelte, athletic types. Even so, she was too pretty for me not to take interest.
She began to walk away, then turned around. "Look, can I take you to lunch or something? It was so nice of you to do this."
"Not necessary, really. But if you'd like to go cycling sometime, let me know."
She nodded. "Okay, I'd like that. But I'm sure you're much faster than me."
"Keep training, and you'll get faster," I said. "Besides, you might have another tru issue, and what better way to have one than to be riding with a guy who knows how to fix it."
It was a parody of a pick-up line, and by her wry expression, it was obvious she got it, yet went along. "You know, you might be right. Are you free tomorrow?"
Tomorrow was a Sunday, and I had planned to do a group ride with my regular cycling buddies. "Sure, that works," I said, rearranging my priorities. "I'm Kerry Couture, by the way."
"Tiffany Winter," she said.
"Tiffany...pretty name. And so are you, by the way."
"Thanks," she said, with a slight blush. "I'll look forward to riding with you."
*****
We left from our neighborhood just before nine. Typical for our region in the height of summer, the humidity was over fifty percent and the air temp hovered around eighty. By noon, we expected the mercury to climb by at least ten degrees. Our bikes were typical for the times, all steel, with down-tube shifters and straps hanging from the pedals. Disc brakes, electronic shifting, strapless pedals and carbon frames were either in the prototype stage or just an idea in some bike builder's mind.
Tiffany said she had done part of the hilly to rolling route I had picked out. "The hills are my nemeses," she said. "But then that's the sort of terrain we have around here."
She was right. One couldn't ride more than two miles before encountering a hill, be it long, short, gentle or steep. "Keep at it and you'll get better," I said. I didn't add dropping weight, something I'm sure she knew.
The twenty-mile route took us through four miles of suburbia, then down a quarter-mile descent into a watershed area with a four-square-mile reservoir at its center, surrounded by woods and steep hills. Light motor traffic made it ideal for cyclists. I let her take the lead so I could get an idea of her pace. Mine on a good day was in the upper teens, a huge gap from the maximum thirteen-mile per hour pace she was keeping. Ordinarily, I'd have been bored to tears riding with someone at this languid pace. Of course, it was all relative. My pace to a pro rider or even an amateur racer would seem languid.
We weren't yet out of the watershed when I heard a pop. It was her rear tire. After we pulled over to the curb, I felt the tire to confirm; it was indeed flat, with a nail sticking out of the rubber. "It's a good thing you're here," she said, "because I'd either have to walk home or hitchhike back." Hardly anybody owned cell phones then and there were no pay phones for miles around.
"You should always carry at least one spare tube," I said.
She reached into her saddle bag and pulled out her lone tube, neatly rolled up. "I do, but I can't change a bike tire," she said, looking embarrassed. She also had a frame pump and two tire irons that a rider needs to remove the flat tube from the rim. "All" she lacked was the skill.
"Here, watch me," I said, and proceeded to take her through it, step by step. Changing a bike tire can actually be harder than changing an automobile tire. It's that last step, getting the tire back on the rim, that can foul things up. I advised her to practice at home.
"I feel like you're becoming my own personal bike mechanic," she joked, after I put the wheel back on.
