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Moving on without disrupting her, I continued further into the complex. The practice track was empty, but I could hear voices coming from the shop. When I walked around to the back, I found the bay doors standing open and Darren and Dad inside. They stood in the middle of the floor surrounded by the pieces of a dismantled bike. I laughed.
“That bike got you to a first-place win in the first race of the season, and that’s the thanks it gets?” I teased.
Darren looked up and smiled.
“I’m hoping it’s going to get me to a bunch more first-place wins, but I have to make sure it stays in top shape for that to happen. I figured we could break it down and look at all the individual components again to see if there’s anywhere else I could make improvements,” he said.
“Haven’t you been doing that for the last couple of months?” I asked, walking further into the workshop so I could survey how they had the elements of the bike laid out.
This was far from the first time I’d seen the two of them break apart a bike into each of its individual parts and scrutinize it. The same thing would happen several more times throughout the season as they made repairs, cleaned, and tuned the machine to keep it in its best condition until the very last race.
“In a way. A lot of the time I’ve been evaluating the whole bike or entire systems of it. Which is important, obviously, but doesn’t give me the whole picture. It’s been a while since I’ve actually broken it all the way down and looked at the individual parts. It performed really well last night, but I think it could be better. I want to tweak a few things and see what happens,” he said.
“What are you looking at doing?” I asked.
I stood back and listened as my brother pointed out various parts of the bike and made comments about what he thought could be better about each. Though I was extremely familiar with the construction of the bike and how it worked, just knowing the mechanics wasn’t comparable to his experience and knowledge of it. As the one who actually raced the bike, he had much more insight into how every component interacted with the others to perform in different situations. He was the one who could feel how the bike accelerated and responded to his commands when he was going through the turns or along the straightaways, how easily it could be used to pass other racers, and how stable it felt so he it was secure and safe in each stage of the race.
I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with riding bikes. Of course, I spent my fair share of time on the backs of the machines. But I was never one to race them and didn’t have the same level of connection to a bike that came from those experiences. Listening to him talk about what he felt and experienced during the race the night before and comparing that with the structural and functional knowledge I had of the bike let me give him suggestions for changes that could be made.
I spent the better part of the early afternoon there in the workshop with my brother and father, then headed over to the second workshop to check in with Greg. He was reviewing his own bike and making some modifications as well. It was interesting to see how differently he operated than Darren did. Both were skilled racers, but Greg was much more inward thinking. He liked to do things on his own, and while he was open to hearing suggestions and input from others, he rarely carried on brainstorming sessions with us.
Greg talked to me a bit about what he was doing with his bike and asked for my input on a few things he’d noticed during the race the night before. After another hour spent helping him, I realized I was completely exhausted. Breaking down everything after the bar the night before took longer than I expected it to, and even when I did finally get home, I didn’t get much sleep. Despite being happy and tired, by the time I took a shower and dropped into bed, my brain wouldn’t calm down. Thoughts of Merry had played in my head over and over again. Instead, I tossed and turned for a couple of hours before finally dropping off for a short stretch of sleep.
As much as I wanted to be a part of the post-race enthusiasm on the complex, I couldn’t put in a whole day. My exhaustion would render me useless to anyone who needed anything from me. As I passed through the complex, I saw Merry still sitting in the same spot. It seemed like she hadn’t gone anywhere all day, but I realized she must have moved at some point. There was now a large iced coffee sitting on the ground beside her, and on the other side, a piece of butcher paper spread across the grass held the remnants of a sandwich and a small paper cup that was probably once potato salad.
