Interstate 485 and Johnston Road in Charlotte, NC, will kill you if you so happen to traverse its paths on a bicycle. The city can pave one trillion miles of bike lanes throughout Charlotte, but as long as we got these clown dicks in Yukons, tearing ass up and down the roadways, chirping on their cell phones and/or making love to a Five Guys cheeseburger, there’s just no way in hell I’m heading north on my bicycle. I’m stuck in south Charlotte, riding the ching-ching around plazas, getting quizzical looks from passersby. “Yeah, I’m 27, and I enjoy riding this bike,” I think to myself. “Go fuck yourselves.”
If I could just get across the interstate, a whole new world would open up before my eyes. And it was with that sort of ethos I took to south Charlotte tonight with one goal: Find a path that will lead me underneath I-485, then maybe I can live out my dream of getting around the city on a bicycle. Yea!
So I pedal down into the labyrinth of parking lots around the Ballantyne corporate center, which is nothing more than glassy office buildings. I’d noticed a mysterious path down near the lot’s outskirts while driving on the highway. When I reached the farthest ends, I was stumped. There just wasn’t a way to get across the interstate without sacrificing my life. Then, like fluttering butterflies sweeping down from heaven, I noticed a man on a bicycle, about 200 yards out, pass underneath the highway and disappear. “Ah ha,” I thought. “There IS a path!” I stood transfixed and waited for others to pass by. Perhaps the cyclist was merely an apparition, the Candy Man on two wheels. No, a teenager pedaled into frame. Hot Damn! But how do I get there? There was no path from the lot to the trail, just bushes and hills and scary looking weeds, maybe cannabis, hashish. Who knew? I’ve come this far, I thought, all two blocks from my apartment. There was no turning back.
This first hill was steep, and after 10 steps I hit a shin-high barbed wire fence. Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t be here. Oh well. The Red Ching-Ching (again, that’s my bicycle) was not made for such foliage and terrain, so I shouldered it, took another few steps, quickly realized this was getting way too complicated, and ghost-rode the fucker right down the small hill. Its handlebars turned swiftly and upended. Clank. Sorry, Grandpa. I love this bike, honest.
I made it to the clearing and scanned my limbs for ticks. Lyme Disease would TOTALLY crush the next day’s trip to Milwaukee. Ditto for poison ivy. How would I tell the guys I got poison ivy a day before the biggest trip of the year? Would they treat me as a leper? Isn’t poison ivy spread by contact? I’d need to wear jeans the entire trip, and I certainly wouldn’t tell any of the guys. But, I was getting ahead of myself. I needed to find that trail, and it was getting dark. Again, bikers passed by, jolly, probably eating ice cream cones while dad followed close behind. I headed straight for the magical trail and hit a creek about 3-feet deep. Damn. I’d have to Chris-McCandless up the river to find a crossing. And I did, one with even more six-foot-high weeds, prickly weeds, steep slopes and lots of mud. I pushed my Ching-Ching through the brush, down ravines, but getting no closer to the trail. I was now on the other side of the interstate. Deer ran away from me, prancing. I was in foreign territory and FUCKING terrified, even though I was probably 13 yards from a Harris Teeter and/or Target.
Finally, I came to a crossing in the creek and made my way over, not before falling on my ass, soaking my shoes and bathing myself in North Carolina mud. Swell, I thought. This will go over well when I hit the trail, and some dad sees me coming out and thinks I just got done burying a corpse. Don’t worry, sir, I’m just hanging out in the woods, ya know, skinning my ex-girlfriend. My white shirt was streaked with dirt, my hands were caked in mud and I was no closer to the trail. Dammit, where the hell is this thing? I stopped. This fruitless journey had turned, well, fruitless. I smelled like river and my Ching-Ching, which was spotless when I started, was a dirty diaper. Not to mention I was man-sweating, blowing droplets of saltiness from the tip of my nose. Screw it, I thought. I’m gone. Forget this city. Forget Charlotte and its lack of foresight. I’m neck-high in poison sumac, trying to find a god-damn bike path, and … and…
I carried my bike back to the original hill, falling a few more times, muttering vulgarities toward no one in particular, “The Man” probably. My left ass cheek was caked in dirt. That’s what the pool’s for, I thought, and excitedly pedaled forth. My shins were burning from all the cuts.
I hit the main drag back toward my apartment complex looking like a dude who just got drilled by a bus. I’m sorry I did this to you, Ching Ching, I said aloud.
I parked him outside of the pool, removed my shirt and wiped Ching-Ching down. Afterwards, I tossed the shirt in the garbage and rode home shirtless, with my soaked shoes in my hands. It might have been the worst bike ride of my life.
