Christopher was the youngest member of the Bicycling Club. He didn't know quite why he joined the Bicycling Club, as he didn't have any particular interest or passion for cycling, but he figured that it had something to do with his friend, Bannon.
Bannon was a twenty-seven year old electrician from Ohio, and if anyone could be said to have enthusiasm for cycling, it was Bannon. Ever since he had developed the motor skills to pedal a bicycle he was biking everywhere; down the street, up the hall, over to the living room, across the park. For his third birthday he received a little yellow bicycle with two cute training wheels and a horn, and by four-and-a-half he didn't even need those cute little training wheels anymore. He won every cycling race he could enter and he even managed to win a stage in the 1999 Tour De France. Cycling was in his blood, quite literally; routine doping tests he was required to take in order to enter found that one-point-sixth billionths of his blood was made up of the aluminum, paint and rubber he had received via osmosis while handling his bike.
When he met Christopher at a book club (because an interest that they did share was literature) his enthusiasm for cycling spilled forth on him in such a way that Christopher must have felt compelled to join. Whatever the case, the day after Christopher signed the release that made him a junior member, Bannon took him to the cycling shop and bought him a brand new Schwinn, helmet, and matching tangerine jersey and shorts. They spent twenty minutes every day, and then thirty, and then a hour and more progressively riding their bicycles around town, obeying all traffic laws and bestowing their goodwill and generosity on the pedestrians they encountered. Despite Christopher's prior lack of interest, he soon found he was good enough to enter a tri-county bike marathon, so he and Bannon wasted no time in registering, training and preparing mentally for what was sure to be one of their greatest mutual challenges.
The first day of the marathon dawned and the two friends found themselves at the starting line, amidst a sea of brightly colored jerseys and reflective protective helmets. At the starting gun they set off, keeping a steady pace with each other so that they could have regular conversations in a sort of body language shorthand the two of them had developed involving their eyebrows. For the first few hours they were doing quite well for themselves, making good time and keeping their bodies in good working condition despite the high strain that competitive cycling entails, but around the three hour mark they noticed a cyclist with a large number 37 on his back who was using a set of tires that were not quite regulation. Wanting to inform him of his error so he'd not continue to have an unfair advantage over the other cyclist, Christopher pulled up beside him and ask him his name. The offending cyclist said his name was Max and that he was from out of town, and would have gone into further biographical details in the usual small-talky fashion if Bannon hadn't had the bravery to broach the tender subject of his tires.
Max's face, covered in a pepper-colored mustache of a multitude of curls and ripples, was completely illegible, but it seemed this comment sent him into a severe fit of defensiveness, and without another word he switched to a higher gear and whistled past the two friends. Wanting to stop this enigmatic rule-breaker and maintain the sacred integrity of the tri-county bicycle marathon Bannon pursued him, leaving Christopher not much choice but to follow as well. Rather predictably Max strayed from the marathon's route, navigating through a set of barriers onto a side street that was ill-lit and ill cleaned. Bannon and Christopher's tires, being quite regulation and accustomed to more immaculately maintained streets, took a bit of a beating as they rolled across broken glass and old action figures tossed out by irate young boys, but this was only the beginning of their bicycles' tribulations.
Max then led them onto a pedestrian path proceeding parallel through one of their city's prestigious public poplar parks and it was here that he almost lost them; Christopher ran over the toes of a young busker and narrowly avoided becoming involved in a messy altercation with him, ducking the young musician's guitar as he swung it at his head. Unfortunately this musical expression of outrage sparked a minor riot as the crowd of young lovers and revolutionaries who had been placidly listening to the busker decided it was more entertaining to chase after Bannon and Christopher, forming a moving, pulsing gauntlet of angry beatniks who through bottles of water and lanyards at the two friends. This slowed them up for about five minutes and they nearly lost the villainous (at least, in their minds) Max, but thankfully the beatniks found a small detachment of The Man that they decided to protest, saving Christopher and his bicycle buddy from their violent attentions.
At last it seemed they were about to overtake Max and his Machivellian mobile machinations of menace, and would finally be able to force him to cede the race and enter next year with proper tires, but to their great bewilderment and dismay he seemed to have another trick up his sleeve; he took a sharp turn off of the path, rolled down the grassy hill and drove straight into the lake. This completely unexpected tactic of seeming desperation astounded the pair of friends not quite as much as the fact that he remained completely bouyant as he pedaled across the sky-tinted body of fresh water that was home to many a fish and soda can. They were so fixated on this incredible happening that they completely missed the fact that they too had turned off the path, torn down the hill and entered the lake themselves, and they too were not breaking through the water. It seemed the pair of them, and Max before them, were pedaling so very vigorously that their tires, regulation or not, served as paddle wheels and three of them became a trio of seated Samuel Clemens, shimmering droplets of water blasting out in their wake and angry fish caught in whirlpools by the disturbance of their aquatic home.
This adventure across the lake ended almost as soon as it had began, and once Christopher realized he was on black pavement again he also realized that he and Bannon were at the stating line once again, surrounded by the same sea of jerseyed competitors, now seeming to be much dirtier, exhausted and defeated-looking. Max was nowhere in sight, which disappointed Bannon greatly, but he didn't have much time to be, as at that moment the master of ceremonies thunderously cleared his throat and announced that the tri-county bicycle marathon was officially cancelled on account of all of the participants straying from the appointed course and taking various side-streets and shortcuts. Such flagrant disregard for the rules would not be tolerated and thus the marathon, or indeed any cycling competition, would no longer be held in this city.
Towards the end of this announcement Christopher noticed that the master of ceremonies had a curled and ruffled pepper-colored mustache.
Christopher lost interest in cycling shortly after this ordeal, as did Bannon, and the two of them took up Bridge instead, becoming quite good.
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