Eppie’s Great Race and Tour de France
Every year, around late June, I begin noticing a special kind of cyclist on the American River Parkway. Their typical equipment is spotlessly new or, as often, coated with a year’s worth of garage dust.
These riders are strangely intense–hitting curves at speeds testing their abilities, their faces in full grimace. Runners, leisurely cyclists, and elderly bird watchers are often shouted off the pavement as these frenzied cyclists whoosh past.
Usually, after several encounters with these strangely intense riders, I slap my head in remembrance. Eppies! Of course.
And probably adding to their intensity is each day’s installment of Le Tour, waiting at home on the DVR.