At Home Chez Tom N Tracy

When you drop in unexpectedly at a friend’s place, you get a chance to test the limits of the friendship.

Tracy Wilde, my old racing colleague from the Very Early Daze (before her illustrious career as a world-traveling bike mechanic) was not only home, but happy to hear I was in Durango for three days.

“Come on over, Tom’s on a work trip. You like birds?” she yelled over the lousy phone connection.

I carried my hundred pounds of luggage (banjo, repurposed sweaters, old race memorabilia, and of course the pink Penix) through the skinny door of her 1873 ranchito house and flopped down to catch up on ten lost years.
Last time we were together, she was the ubercompetent mechanic at my first Durango WOMBATS camp (Myra Miller produced that huge, wonderful thing in 1995).
Now she’s an artist using found-objects to decorate her lively abode. And when I told her I was going to fabricate a costume with my cast-off dreadlocks she took a look at my stapler-and-butyl tube materials and grabbed the controls.

An hour later I had what she initially called the pelt belt. I was going to wear only it, and flash the entire thousand-strong peloton with my shining cellulite full moon and modest bosoms. Yes, plural. That was how we referred to ’em as children and no one corrected us.
Maybe I could put a highlighter on the cancer excisions for added drama. Hmm….Calling all ladies who have been there and done that…there is of course much merriment to be had after you’ve been tapped, and sometimes the world permits you to live on for a long time without getting on your case about having no job other than staying alive….

Tom came home and dubbed it a “merkin curtain”.

When race morning dawned cold and clear I realized that my goosebumps might offend. I hung the curtain from my ears a la Hasid and the race look was cinched.

Tom Hoefer is also part of the Knobby Nobility. He celebrated his return from a grueling five day sales trip by stirring up a killer stir fry for Tracy , me and Brendan Shafer (local banjo-makin’ biker & fiddler of note). Then me and Brendan staggered through a few tunes, and then he off downtown and I to bed. Cheating! Getting a full eight hours quality sleep.

All in all it was a kick-ass day: morning pancake feed courtesy of Sol bikes, then hang with Elke Brutsaert disguised as Minnie Pearl pawing through the free bags of costumage…and an afternoon with Damo the Aussie artist that runs Cog Bike Cafe on the Warby Trail…selling our wares, catching up… fun to convince passerby guys that the pink armwarmers with the crocheted butterflies on the sleeves are Very You.

Please Goddess let me sleep. Oh, and can I survive a 23 mile race with 999 people breathing down my neck or up my ass, whatever?