Fifteen miles disappeared in what felt like a heartbeat – or 25 km, as I’d learned to call it – leaving behind the sleepy resort town of Luson. Before I knew it, we were catching glimpses of Bressanone, way down below, and the fracturing mountain road had become a divided highway. When Colin pulled to the side to gulp down some water, I could barely believe how far we’d come – and how quickly. Most unbelievable was how much I wanted to keep going.
My first sip of water turned into a guzzle, as I realised how thirsty I was. The front of my lovely new jersey was dark with sweat down the middle.
‘How are you doing?’ Colin asked.
I answered him the only way I could – with a shrug.
‘We… Now we have to get back.’
He meant ‘up’. We had to get backup.
‘You gonna make it?’
Another question I couldn’t answer. Cursing inwardly, over and over, I was angry with myself for losing fitness, for using the end of my career as an opportunity to wallow. I would always be a hard worker, but I’d lost sight of everything I might want to workfor. Now the world was too big for me.
Tucking his bottle back in the holder, Colin gripped his handlebars once more, ready to push off. He sent one more glance in my direction. ‘Stay close behind me.’
He meant he’d draft me, use his slipstream to help me get up the hill. It seemed he wasn’t even going to tease me. I was too much an object of pity for that, even if it turned out I could still rock the curves on a descent.
The PowerFuel logo stamped on his butt was a familiar sight after the week I’d spent filming him, but feeling his slipstream was so much more powerful than just the sight. He didn’t set a high pace and I guessed the climb was long.
That turned out to be an understatement. It was relentless.
With tears in my eyes, it was only stubbornness that kept me going as we rounded the mountain range to the east of Bressanone and headed back up into the high meadows. My lungs burned and I adjusted the gears right down, crawling up the hill.
As we crept higher and higher, the landscape was so awe-inspiring it triggered a splatter of emotions I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in nine long months. The climb broke me. Surprisingly, it wasn’t my body that went first, as I had put in some hours on a stationary bike to taper safely. It was my heart.
I loved this. All of it. The torture of the climb. The utter silence of the looming mountains, the neon meadows and the stoic pines, rays of sunshine sending a glimmer over everything. The strain on my body and the relief of a flat stretch of road. The cool, clear air to feed my empty lungs and racing metabolism.
All I needed was oxygen, sugar and water. My purpose was to go – tomove. I loved this so much and Colin had known this would happen. He was a fucking bastard for making me confront it when there was no way I could go back.
The computer on my bike ticked up with the altitude. It wasn’t fast, or pretty, but I did it. I made it. Just me and the bike – and a little help from Colin Gallagher.
Colin
I didn’t even need to say ‘I told you so’ when we pulled off the road for a break in a clearing surrounded by deep green pines with Dolomite peaks ranging above. Her face was the age of the mountains and just as austerely beautiful. She still felt it. I could tell.
‘It’s beautiful from a car, but it’s different when you’re out here, part of the landscape,’ I commented softly, watching her take it all in, waiting for her to say something as she leaned her bike against a pile of stacked-up firewood.
I didn’t expect her to stalk right up to me and give me a shove hard enough to make me stumble backwards.
‘Are you satisfied?’
‘I was until you shoved me,’ I responded cautiously. ‘You had fun, right?’
‘Huh.’
I straightened when I caught the sheen of moisture in her eyes.
‘It’s not aboutfun. I used tolivefor this. The past nine months have beenso hardand now I’m right back where I started – because you decided to toy with me!’ She tugged off her helmet and ran a gloved hand over her head, turning her mess of curls into a riot.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Of course you don’t! You’re the star! You don’t have to choose between cycling and life.’
I cleared my throat pointedly. ‘Only because I don’t have a choice – and I don’t have a life,’ I said drily. That took some of the steam out of her. ‘I don’t understand why you quit!’ I continued. ‘I know it’s shit how little you got paid, but you could have taken another job in the winter like Doortje does, if you’re so sad about it.’
She flinched and the guilt shot through me as though I’d hit her. I opened my mouth to blurt out something unconsidered in an attempt to make things better, but she spoke before I had a chance.
