My Eau Rouge

[Doc Austin]

Motorsports are rich with grand challenges. Challenges that test the man's fittness, his courage, the very fibre of his soul. There are so many they are impossible to list, though a select few stand apart from the rest. LeMans' white House curves may have been the sport's most fearsome challenge ever, though The Mulsanne kink was once terriffying, blindingly fast. Drivers no less than Jackie Stewart and Brian Redman still speak of Spa's Masta Kink in hushed tones as though they are still threatened by it, though it is no longer raced on. No less drivers than the Great Zanardi and Jaques Vileneuve have had horrendous crashes at Spa's Eau Rouge, probably the last of the great challenges left in a sport that is ever suffering emasculation.

Sadly, I have never had the opportunity, and probably not the courage, either, to face these challenges myself, but I have had my own personal Eau Rouge, my own personal Masta Kink, so to speak.

I'm not a brave man. I don't like to get hurt, but I like a good thrill and life is meaningless without a challenge or two along the way. I am a fairly avid cyclist, but I'm no racer and I don't pretend to be a bad ***. I'm faster than most recreational riders, and, hey, I've got a bad *** bike, but even a bottom tier racer would smoke me off the trail. I just try to stay fit and trim while I enjoy the Florida outdoors.

There is one spot, however, that captured my imagination. It's the golfcart path at the Bellview Biltmore Gold course. The clubhouse is the world's largest wooden structure and it sits on the plushest, most rolling piece of land in Pinellas county. Only the wealthiest of the wealthiest can play here. It is one snobby place. I imagine they all stand around in the clubhouse after a round, drinking tea, holding their little cups with their pinkie finger sticking out and and calling each other "old chap."

One section of the path plunges downhill to a shallow, rock lined creek. Of course, the golfcarts need to get across the creek, so the path winds down the hill, offcamber, and gently curving across rough old, patched pavement. Rough because of all the times storms had risen the creek and it ravaged the bridge and the asphault that lay low enough.

So, I would ride by the golf course every day on my way to checking out the honeys at Clearwater Beach. I've seen that bridge hundreds and hundreds of times over years and years, but I was never insane enough to think of riding my bike across it.

Some things are just so stupidly dangerous that you never even give a thought to doing them. Some things you never think about because they are too horrible to think about.

But one day....................one day the bridge called to me.

It didn't look so bad, but that was only because from the road you could only see the entry from the north side. Unfortunately, I had taken a different route that day and was approaching the golf course from the south when I turned onto the path.

I rode a ways past the plush greens and fairways, manicured to near perfection. I could see the bridge, but not the road before it because the incline was so sharp. Regardless, it didn't look so bad, and I rode over the crest haplessly unaware I was about to seriously endanger myself.

The road dropped sharply, and my speed rose suddenly as gravity grasped me, faster and faster as the road plunged even more sharply.

At first, you can't see where the road was going because the drop off is so sharp, but once I was past the absolute sharpest part of the initial drop off I could clearly see that I had gotten myself into something I wasn't ready for.

The road dropped hard and curved sharply as it ran parrellel to the creek and as the road's camber fell away, the tires scratched and clawing for grip. I was absolutely on the edge. It was very clear that one mistake and it would be off the bike and onto the awaiting rocks.

Well, now it was just a matter of survival.

Just before the bridge, there is another horrid drop off. And it was only with full application of both brakes and scooting my butt back as far as I could that I didn't land on my front wheel. At the time, the pavement there was terribly rough with patches and the bike shuttered and shook so hard I was afraid my front fork would snap off. As all this was going on, the road took one more final kind to the left just as the road joined the bridge. I slid wide and banged my elbow, hip and knee on the rickety old wooden guardrail, which was solid enough to keep me up, but gave just enough so I didn't fly over it and into the drink.

Of course, the adrelenin was so intense that I humped the bike back up the incline on the other side without looking back.

I didn't look at the bridge again for a month. I took another route because I just didn't want to ever see it again.

I've taken the bridge a few times since, and in both directions too. Going south it is not nearly so bad as the entry isn't as steep or blind, and is nearly straight, but going north, you can't see where you are going until you hit the offcamber, downhill sweeper that leads to the drop off and torridly rough pavement.

Lately they have replaced the guardrails and paved section before the bridge. They have also installed curbing on each side of the cartpath, an unacceptable hazard should one on a bicycle slide a little wide. It is simply too dangerous because if you slide wide, instead of having the bike slide out from under you, the tires will hit the curbing and probably throw you over the top, and right onto the rocks.

Well, it is a cartpath. It seems some "gentlemen" had teatime a little early, only they weren't drinking tea, lost control of their cart and landed upside down in the drink. Hey, the lawyers got involved. I'm surprised they didn't put in a chicane with gravel traps.

I still take the bridge once in awhile, though much more slowly. No sense in being stupid about it.

One time since the initial scare stands out though. As I crossed the bridge and climbed back to the road, a man in a cap ran to the edge of the cartpath, furiously shaking his putter at me, yelling "Faster next time, you miserable wanker!"

It was Nigel Mansell.