The Boomerang Effect

Here's a guest post from Chris Sanville, currently the most responsible rising sophomore on the men's team.

This afternoon it came time for me to go on a bike ride. As I prepared, putting my various energy bars, Hammer Gel bottles, and water packs in order, I cast a wary eye out my kitchen window. The skies looked dark and foreboding. They were covered by clouds colored that navy shade of blue, with heavy, smoke-grey puffs around the edges and lower down in the atmosphere. However, it had already deluged once on me earlier in the day, during my VO2max workout, so applying the same faulty logic that I do with cops (that is, once you see one it is statistically less likely that you'll see another, so speed away), I hopped on my bike and pedaled with confidence toward the long farm roads just past the edge of suburbia.

For the first part of the ride my confidence was well-placed. However, once I reached that point (you know, the you're-far-enough-out-that-it-would-be-stupid-to-turn-around-just-because-of-the-weather point), it started to rain on me hard, painfully hard. Yet, seeing as I had already crossed the aforementioned point, I figured that it would be stupid to turn around just because of the weather, and that eventually it would lighten up.

Half an hour later, my figuring turned out to be right: the weather did lighten up, but not before it became a lot worse. At one point the only way I could tell the difference between the downpour soaking me and being splashed by dump trucks travelling at absurd, not very safe in these conditions speed, was the direction that the water came from. By the time I reached the point in my loop where I begin to head back toward the cities, the rain had lessened to a steady drizzle, and I was actually enjoying the ride, thinking that the storm would have moved on by the time I came back.

Well, I thought wrong. The magic of riding for two hours and ending up at the same spot and the mystery that is Minnesota weather joined forces to drench me on the way back as well. I call this the Boomerang Effect, named for the same emotional highs and lows one feels while throwing a boomerang. Things seem to be great as the boomerang speeds away from you, but then you realize how much trouble you're in as it comes hurtling back, because it is a weapon, and you really can't catch.

The route that I was considering took me through some pretty flat, untreed farmland, which seemed like a good idea until a huge crackle of lightning ripped the sky open directly above my head and reminded me that I was sitting on a pretty good conductor, not to mention already being soaked. I explained all this to a fellow rider and weather refugee while making obscene noises trying the last of my Hammer Gel out of its container, noises that sounded like what I imagine an anteater must make while dealing with a particularly troublesome colony, or perhaps the noise the toilet makes in my family's second floor bathroom right before I sprint for the plunger. We had both camped out in the shelter provided by the restrooms found at the end of the Gateway Trail, an 18.3 mile length of paved bike trail, stretching from the heart of St. Paul to the beginnings of farmland (St. Paul is not a big city). He, as only bikers can, did not bat an eyelash at my attempted consumption of energy and instead commented that the tires on my bike were rubber, suggesting that this would be enough to insulate me from any lightning strike.

The storm showing no sign of ceasing and the other guy starting to smell, I decided to head back on the much more sheltered Gateway. He wished me luck, saying he hoped not to find my charred corpse in a ditch somewhere along the trail. Empathizing heavily, I agreed, and set out once more into the rain.

The ride back was amazing. The rain on the smooth, newly resurfaced blacktop, combined with the light from the storm shaded sun, turned the trail into a ribbon of crystal clear mirror winding its way through the Minnesota woods and swamps. It gave the ethereal feeling of biking on the sky. Toward the end of the ride, it warmed up and, though still raining, the trail started steaming, further contributing toward the feeling of otherworldliness.

As I turned down my street, the rain slowed down, and the instant that my tire crossed onto my driveway, it stopped completely and the sun came out, an interesting side effect of the Boomerang Effect that I have observed before. Damp, and beginning to chill, I went inside, changed out of my clothes, which had achieved the consistency and saturation of drowned rat, and popped into the shower, but not before putting the kettle on for some warm Jasmine tea. Now, as I sit here with the tea pleasantly warming me from the inside out, I'm reminded of something my Dad said when one of his friends asked him, "Why in God's name do you like backpacking so much?" He replied, "Because it feels so good when you're done."