The Juggernauts Crossing Lethe
...of bikes, Juggernauts, arachnophobia and lovelorn bullfrogs in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A very thin allusion to high brow literature from a low brow MTB racer.
“The Juggernauts’ Crossing the Lethe: Trying to explain how the Juggernauts’ collective memory could be so inconceivably short”
To be fair, it’s a bit heady to draw too many parallels between a back-country bike race and Dante’s epic journey with Virgil, but there is something to be said for the predictable manner with which the crew’s collective memory is revised, or thoroughly erased - oftentimes within minutes of finishing a plunge through infernal hardship and suffering - only to begin planning anew for the next assault.
As in the past, the Juggernauts endured molten lakes, frozen rivers, monsters, treachery, deceit, gigantic arachnids, and predatory and promiscuous bullfrogs to once again cross the river Lethe as memories of Mt Whoville and root ladders faded on the porch of the Brevard NC race lodge … beers and Maker’s Mark support selective memory or willful ignorance (or both) immeasurably.
So I’ll walk the Pisgah 111k backwards … from Finish to Start. It sort of represents the slow devolution of memory … get it? Anyway, I’ll try and illustrate, and thus help to understand why the Juggs just. keep. coming. back. Sort of like that one golf shot, but very very different …
The beginning of Forgetfulness.
- beers;
- two miles of final ripping downhill;
- high fives at the top of the last 100 meter bike push - real or imagined;
- the last 100 meter bike push;
- Pilot Rock downhill and switchbacks;
- Mt Whoville death march and root ladder field (a.k.a., My Own Private Idaho and multiple Quit Bikes moments);
- most of the ride - actually some of the best 80k of race course ever, except it’s a 111k race - sooo;
- the start;
Boundless hopes and expectations
Until next time.
- Fang
