Racing the Mosquito Brigade - Cycling Mob: Road Cycling, Mountain Biking and More

07-17-2004, 02:13 PM

Second ride of the day, we're going out as the sun nears the horizon
to enjoy the views of the Chesapeake back bay.

On the second lap of a 2 mile out-and-back, we hear a noise behind us,
like a giant bug or drone - holy cow, it's some kind of demented
mosquito spraying guy, with the fog coming out of the back in a big
fog/jet, thick and grey.

He's going on sidestreets, perpendicular to our ride. We finish and
turn around and head back out, thinking the fog would have settled
down in about 3 minutes.

The sunset is gorgeous, and thoughts drift, and we're soon back to
practicing our two-man team bike handling.

Heading towards the first side street in a long isolated straight
stretch, suddenly and without any warning, the mosquito truck turns
into our road from a side street, about 200 feet ahead and is coming
RIGHT AT US!

I pull in front of my brother, and swing a big fast U-turn after
checking to see that my brother has turned - he has and is scampering
down the road. Did not want to mess up and collide, even in the
panicked reaction.

For the first 50 feet the truck is gaining on me, but I kick it and am
soon seeing the headlights unchanging, meaning I'm pacing it. If he
passes me, I'm gonna be choking to death!

Took a good 2 minutes to get to the stop sign at the end of the long
straightaway, even going 22mph, (19 for my brother on his old cro-moly
trail bike.) but it wasn't over.

I missed riding through the traffic, and had to put a foot down as the
truck closed, but just at the last minute I had an opening and sped
toward the home base - his garage, where we park the bikes.

As I turned the snaky corner and headed back, I glance back and the
truck is following us! I couldn't believe it, b/c it was definitely
not near the prime spray areas - it was like the 'Killer Semi' story
on TV, with the blacked out windows, but great billowing clouds of
some toxic spray spewing out, and the sound track from Jaws playing in
the background.

Still the most fun we had biking this week, and we were rolling on the
floor laughing.

-B
Fortunately, about 10 car lengths before catching us we zipped around
a corner and under cover of the hedges had backed into the garage and
I had pulled down the door, so the Crazed Mosquito Sprayer couldn't
see where we had escaped - safe once more.