But jacking up the speed on a descent was something I was more than happy to do. It beat battling the asphalt on a climb. Tucking myself down, tight to the frame of my bike, my mind soared with my body.
Lime-green alpine meadows and ancient grey rock, jagged peaks with patches of snow – the world was enormous around me as I harnessed gravity instead of fighting it. I always felt like Magneto on an epic descent – although that was kind of embarrassing to admit and the marketing people would hate that I identified with a villain, even a little.
But I certainly wasn’t a hero.
Gravity seemed to be on my side this year. Whipping around curve after curve, my knee a whisper from the road, I didn’t need to look at my computer to know I was killing it. I couldn’t look at my computer. I needed my eyes on the road, my brain and my instincts all in tune to master the bends.
I let the bike fly through the straights, hanging on for the ride. There would be no winner of this training ride, no pressure to fight. There were no obstacles on the road – I was going too fast to see them if there were. The pulling sensation on my skin and the tenor of the vibrations in the handlebars made me think I’d cracked 90 km an hour. The wind sluicing over my slick body – slick from sweat and from the slippery Lycra of my jersey and bib shorts – drowned out every other sound.
It was a shame to slow down as the road flattened out, but there was another set of bends ahead and, at this speed, I’d shoot right off the edge. Deceleration was like popping out of a wind tunnel as I finessed the brakes. Racing since I was nine years old, I felt ageless, immortal, on these familiar descents – part of the landscape and beyond the reach of the laws of physics. Maybe life would have been easier if I had been.
The crackle of Dad’s voice in my earpiece greeted my return to the real world. ‘Thank the fucking saints, Colin. That’s 20 years of my life I’ll never get back. There’s no fucking reason to hit 95 ks an hour on a fucking training ride.’
I eased around the first bend, my skin suddenly cold. Did he know how many years ofmylifeI’dnever get back? But he’d made his point. Only a helmet and a thin layer of material separated me from the cruel road and I’d seen what a crash could do to someone in a split second.
My older sister, Lori, had never been the same after she’d broken her back. She’d recovered physically – because she was such a stubborn shit – but mentally? She wasn’t as tough as before. To top it off, she’d got together with Seb Franck, the spineless wonder whose only special talent was mooning over her. Except I kind of missed that bugger, now he’d retired.
We were heading straight down the valley to Bormio, through the gallerie, half-tunnels that protected the road from the steep hillside above. The gradient felt like going over the handlebars, but I knew exactly where my front wheel needed to be. I felt the updraughts and the force of gravity, heard the whistle of the rocks whooshing past, close enough to touch.
I was soaring, ignoring the mumbling in the background over the radio. Then came Dad’s voice. ‘Did you hear that? It’s Leesa Kubicka!’
Whoosh, I went straight down. A split second’s misjudgement and I overcorrected, hitting the deck with a metallic clatter and a rip of clothing – and skin. Gravity no longer bowed to me as it scraped me down the road for long enough that the pain kicked in, but I came to a stop eventually, my feet pointing up the hill and my helmet caught in some weeds.
‘Farking hell, Colin!’
Chest heaving, I stared up at the sky, fluffy little clouds taunting me as the world seemed to be at the wrong angle, trees growing down and physics pulling me up. Blood rushed in my ears and the aftershocks of adrenaline zapped in my arms.
That was the effect Leesa Kubicka had on me.
I slammed my eyes shut and I could picture her, caked in sweat, a smile on her lips and her curly hair rioting when she took off her helmet. Bright, sharp eyes. A divot in her chin – a face I thought I’d never see again, punching the breath out of me when I’d watched her go down in her last race, back in September.
Hearing the screech of car brakes and then footsteps, I wrenched my eyes open to find Dad bending over me. He reached out a hand, but I hauled myself into a sitting position before he could begin his examination. My skin pulled over my elbow and my thigh stung – no big deal. Everything moved as it should.
‘Look at the state of your paintwork!’ Dad cried, clapping me on the back as though I were a toddler with wind. It smarted – both the wallop between the shoulder blades and his words. After nearly 20 years of training with him, I knew when he said ‘paintwork’ he meant ‘skin’, but it got to me more than usual.
Everything seemed to be getting to me, which didn’t bode well for the Tour starting in four weeks.
‘What was that?’ he prompted.
‘I got distracted,’ I mumbled back.
‘No joke! This isn’t what I meant when I said we should hurry back to meet your new content manager.’
Whipping off my reflective sports glasses, I squinted up at my dad, slowly putting two and two together. She’d been about to start an internship at a sports marketing agency after acing her studies. Wilhelmina, our team marketing guru, had told me something (I’d mostly ignored) about a partnership with PowerFuel. If Leesa was here…
Leesa washere?
Heat rushed up the back of my neck and I swiped a hand over the stupid moustache.
‘Let me give you a hand.’
I batted Dad’s arm away and rose to my feet, stumbling as I found my balance on the steep slope. I had my bike upright and one leg halfway over the saddle when Dad stopped me.
‘Come back in the car. You should get those scratches looked at.’
I hesitated, my hair standing on end as I hoped he couldn’t see this restlessness that shadowed me more and more often these days.
‘Be a hero another day, Colin.’
