Feats of Glory: Part II, Tandem!

As we cross the finish line in a blur of speed, applause erupts, engulfing us in a sea of success. Such success I had only dreamed of when signing up for the Angkor Wat Bike Race & Ride 2010 a couple months back.

But then I had never imagined I would be astride the seat of a creature as marvelous as Liquisha.

Fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and townmate Rachel and I weren’t planning on riding a tandem bicycle in the race, but there was no denying Liquisha. 

She and a friend stand apart from the boring one-seater bicycles. A hand-lettered sign dangling jauntily from her first set of handlebars proclaims: “For rent.” Her red paint glistens and her basket bobs as she whispers “Come hither.” So we do.

A quick spin around the block and we're in love. Sure, she drives a bit crooked and her brakes could be more responsive, but we know Liquisha is the one.  

(Note: Liquisha isn’t just some cutesy black-person name we conjured up to be funny, it was the factory-given name printed across our tandem’s crossbar. We stuck with it.)

Romantic visions of picnics and petticoats pirouette in my head as we cycle to the registration hotel. “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do,” I sing the start of the only song I know about a tandem bicycle. Maybe you know it. The guy singer wants Daisy to marry him. But he can’t afford a carriage. He can only afford “a bicycle built for two.” 

One of my life goals is to ride a tandem bicycle, and finally here I am, accomplishing my goal. Goal-making really works! While I am singing, Rachel is behind me giggling, somewhat hysterically, over the novelty of it all.

My legs won’t fit in back, so I am up front, where Liquisha seems like an ordinary, albeit ornery, bicycle. But in back Rachel can see that she is anything but ordinary. “You have to try it back here,” Rachel spurts between giggles.

   

We ride on and on in a romantic haze until a motorcycle hits us. Not fatally or even injuriously, just a brush of the side mirror against the handlebars, but still scary. Rachel begins her intermittent screams of “We’re going to die,” and the mood turns more dour.

Riding a tandem bicycle is serious stuff. I stop singing and start doubting our decision. If we were having trouble riding the kilometer or two to register, how would we fare in the 30-kilometer race the next day?

Things start looking up when Rachel’s feminine charms land us free tickets to that night’s banquet. I love free anything, especially food. Especially when the food’s supposed to cost $12 a plate.

The man who gives us the tickets is also trying to get people to sign up for the next day’s run. His method is somewhat flawed.

His words, more or less, are, “It’s awesome ‘cause you’re in this huge mass of people all running to get to the same place.”

Yeah, awesome, just like the stampede that killed and injured more than a thousand people a mere week before. That started the same way. People all running to get to the same place — off the bridge.

The dinner that night isn’t extraordinary, but it's mildly good. Khmer food wearing a fancy tux. Lemony fish soup, banana plant salad, ginger chicken with rice and sweet egg rolls for dessert. No drinks included, not even water. Fortunately we didn’t pay for our tickets.

The next day we are up at 5 a.m., ready to race. The morning begins somewhat sour when the zipper pops off my bike jersey. Another life goal of mine has been to have a bike jersey, preferably one I don’t have to pay for. And what happens? I finally get a jersey, with a back pocket and all, and I break the damn thing, turning it into the equivalent of a boob-baring evening gown. Thankfully I have a sports bra, so I can still get away with wearing the flawed jersey.

Next bummer: The tuk-tuk driver who had quoted me $1 to the temple doesn’t show up. In his place are a bunch of drivers wanting $5. Forget it, dudes. We need more tandem practice anyway. 

A unimpressive pic of the impressive Angkor Wat taken a long time ago — also at sunrise, although you can't tell.

We arrive at Angkor Wat before the sun is up. The race is supposed to start around 6, or whenever the sun rises. The sky’s daytime orb must do it’s job cause the sky gets brighter, but we never witness the spectacular sunrise that The Lonely Planet calls "a must-see."

A gunshot starts the race. But we’re not off until well after the smoke has cleared. Want to give those die-hard 100-k-ers some space. They’re the ones wearing aerodynamic helmets, biking shorts and bike cleats. None are riding tandems.

We spot another tandem in the race, and only refrain from running it off the road since a small child is the back-seat rider.

Despite Liquisha’s competition, we get plenty of attention, partly because Liquisha doesn’t have a bell and we have to scream profanities to let people know we’re coming through.

One 100-k-er tells us to, “Keep it up” in a condescending tone seeming to imply that because we’re riding a tandem we must be retarded.  

Still, most of our attention is in the form of wonder and admiration. We ride along to constant cries of “Tandem!”

A former Peace Corps staffer praises us for being creative, as if we built Liquisha. We wish. Maybe if we had, she would ride better. She constantly veers to the right, and my right arm is almost numb with the pain of forcing her to the left and back on the road.

I had imagined the race route would be on a narrow dirt path winding through wild jungles packed with crumbling temples. It isn’t. It’s on a two-lane paved road. Still, we pass by several temples, dating from the early 10^th to the early 13^th centuries.  

  

We stop at a few of these temples, and also to refuel at the tables of free fruit (unfortunately only the rejects are left by the time we roll up). 

And in a flash — only two-and-a-half hours! — it’s over.

My three protein bars are gone and we’re whizzing through the finish line, drawing major decibels of applause. We soon learn the applause began because the crowd mistook us for the first of the 100-k finishers.

We didn’t win any prizes in the race, but we still crossed that finish line. And not atop just any bike either, but atop Liquisha, a flawed but glorious bicycle built for two.

Taking a cop for a spin post-race.