[CR]Sunday lesson---dirty Masi

(Example: Bike Shops:R.E.W. Reynolds)

From: "C. Andrews" <chasds@mindspring.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:29:23 -0800
Subject: [CR]Sunday lesson---dirty Masi

The ride to the Carlsbad Masi factory building this Sunday was apparently abandoned by all but yours truly yesterday...(whatsa matta wit you guys? Afraid of a little water? Jeez Pergolizzi, I would have expected that at least *you'd* show up!!).

I drove up to the Pizza Port in Solana Beach, right at 9:45am. No-one in sight. I park. It's not raining, but the sky is lowering. Roads are wet. I take out my pristine, period-correct, nearly NOS, show-bike-condition Masi Special, and consider the possibilities. It's been long enough since I rode wet roads that I conveniently forget what that's like. This is southern California after all.

But I need the miles, so I decide to go alone.

No-one shows up. I get togged up, and after a brief look at my map, start up Lomas Santa Fe Road, thinking I'll do some kind of loop back in the hills, come down around Carlsbad, go pay my respects to the old pile, than back down Pacific Coast Highway to Solana.

At the top of the road, about 3 miles and 1000 feet up, or so--not much-- the road turns wet. Very wet. Suddenly I'm thinking "argh, my beautiful Cinelli warm-up sweater, my beautiful Masi, they're getting WET, and DIRTY!!!! &^%$!!"

Then the strangest thing happened. I was ashamed, actually. I'm gingerly avoiding the worst puddles (it's not raining, just misting a little, but the road is very wet), when I hit a sudden downhill, and a bit of traffic, and suddenly I am wet. The bike's wet, I'm wet, and I'm hammering away on this downhill...because this bike spoke to me. Like a doberman that's been a lap-dog for years, suddenly shaking itself and saying "this is what I was MADE for!" I don't normally anthropomorphize my bikes, but this was unmistakable. That Masi sat up, looked around and said "hey! Took you long enough to get me out here, let's RIDE!" And ride we did.

About 50 miles. Halfway back to PCH, I stopped to wring out my socks..I felt like a real roadie then. As I hit the coast, the clouds began to lift, the sun came out, and I had a lovely ride up to Carlsbad and the old Masi factory building.

Someone should pay to have a sign or plaque put on it, signifying what it once was. It's a YMCA Gymnastics Center now.

I sat in the empty parking-lot, in the mid-afternoon sun, the light of the mercurial early-March variety, as the remaining clouds skittered across the sky, and I thought of those idealistic young guys building beautiful frames within sight of the Pacific...of how brief that time was, how youth defines life for us.

Then the ride back along the coast to Solana Beach, a gorgeous, gorgeous day the clouds lifting, the northwest breeze bringing the fresh salt smell of the sea over the road, huge storm-surf pounding the beach just a few yards from the highway in some cases. Silver sunlight reflecting on the water.

All I can say, you guys who bailed on the ride, you missed a great day!

The best lesson: the bikes are *supposed* to get dirty! So are we. That's the pleasure and the pain of being slave to the road.

Charles Andrews
SoCal