Suzanne Schlosberg, often seen on the CVC advanced rec. and racer rides, has twice done what most of us have only thought about: ridden her bike across the US. Suzanne, a free lance writer and former senior editor at Shape Magazine, wrote a series of articles about her 47-day trek from Anaheim to Orlando. Here are more excerpts from her dispatches:
CAMERON, La. -- I generally don't experience pleasure watching the death of other living things, but as I sit here scratching the giant, red welts on my toes, ankles, thighs, calves, and rear end, one thought gives me an immense amount of gratification: the violent murder of all of the mosquitoes in Texas.
I want those suckers dead.
I want their wiry legs mangled and their skinny, black bodies squashed beyond recognition. I want revenge for the past three days, during which swarms of Gulf Coast mosquitoes have chased us on our bikes, eaten through our Lycra shorts, congregated in our showers, invaded our tents and made a complete mockery of our repeated attempts to shoo them away with so-called "repellents" such as Cutter's and Off.
"Off is like hors d'oeuvres for them." said Dave Merlino, 20, who was awakened Monday by the sound of his own scratching. Merlin, a sophomore at San Diego State University, has stopped counting the bites on his leg. "I've only had college math," he said.
The scourge began last Saturday at a grassy seaside campground in Freeport, Texas, which had been converted into a mosquito breeding ground by several days of heavy rain.
However, since most of the cyclists in our group hail from the North and the West, we failed to realize what evil lurked in the damp field where we pitched our tents. In fact, we were still talking about the day's storm, which had flooded our campsite 66 miles back in Edna and forced some people to sleep on the concrete block underneath the picnic tables.
So we innocently set up camp in Freeport, scarfed down red snapper at a local restaurant and went to sleep.
My personal descent into hell began around midnight, when I woke up in need of a restroom. But because my tent was 100 yards from the campground bathroom, I decided to just step outside and use the facilities that nature had provided. That apparently is when one mosquito spotted my naked rear end and yelled, "Smorgasbord!" loud enough for all of his friends and relatives in southwest Texas to hear.
Within seconds, many mosquitoes were plastered to my butt, feasting as if they were competing in a timed flesheating contest. Stunned, I pulled up my shorts, charged back into my tent and zipped it up as fast as I could. But the damage had been done. I
writhed around for an hour, nearly hyperventilating as I dug my nails into my swollen bites.
By Sunday morning, our entire group was under attack. The aerial attackers had penetrated the cracks in the bathroom's wood paneling and occupied the toilets, showers and sinks.
At about 6 a.m. Sue Rock surrendered. Rock, 48, a Philadelphia lawyer, was standing inside a bathroom stall ready to apply her daily dose of bag balm, an ointment designed to soothe the chapped udders of milking cows and is popular among cyclists with chafed butts. (We ignore the part of the label which says "for veterinary use only.")
Rock was ready to scoop out a gob of the Vaseline-like substance when she realized she was surrounded by mosquitoes. She then let out a scream that has become legendary and came running out of the stall.
"I just couldn't stand it," Rock said. "I couldn't put the bag balm on and get the mosquitoes off me at the same time." Another cyclist in the bathroom came to Rock's rescue, waving a towel up and down to drive away the bugs while Rock finished applying the ointment. [But did the mosquitoes have a lawyer? ed]
Most of the group packed up their belongings as quickly as possible, pausing only for the brief pleasure of smashing mosquitoes. Tracy Sturman, however, had it worse than the rest of us. Sturman, 26, of Los Angeles, broke her wrist in a biking accident in the California desert and has been cycling with a cast on her arm (and, in the rain, with a garbage bag over the cast). with the cast on, she was unable to squash mosquitoes by clapping her hands.
"I was so jealous of everyone else -- that's the key way to kill the mosquitoes," said Sturman, who fears that when she gets her cast removed she'll find dead mosquitoes inside.
It had stopped raining when we cycled into our next campground, an RV park in Galveston. Most of us had the same two words on our mind: Howard Johnson's.
Only a dozen cyclists pitched their tents. I was not one of them. I checked into the HoJo's down the road and spent the night in a clean, air-conditioned room, where I could scratch my bites in peace. Overnight, it rained again, setting the stage for Monday night's mosquito-fest in Sabine Pass, the last of our 17 days in Texas. When I had to pedal through four inches of water to reach the wood deck where we pitched our tents (because the grass was flooded), I knew we were in trouble again.
However, having learned from my previous mistakes, this time I took precautions. I sprayed my body, I sprayed my tent, I sprayed my clothes, I got in my tent at 8 p.m. and did not leave.
This morning, Tuesday, I woke up, looked up at the netting on my tent and saw the swarms of mosquitoes who no doubt considered me breakfast. I stared at them. They stared at me.
"I'm not leaving my tent," I said to the mosquitoes. "I am going to get married and raise a family right in this tent. My children will experience home schooling right here in this tent." Alas, my fantasy was interrupted by growling noises emanating from my stomach. Breakfast was 10 miles up the road, and the unfortunate fact was, in order to get there, I was going to have to leave the tent.
I quickly packed up my belongings, dismantled the tent, waddled to the gear truck carrying my two large duffel bags and darted to my bike. When I lifted my helmet, which I'd left hanging on the handlebars overnight, it was teeming with mosquitoes. I screamed in horror, banged the helmet against a trash can, then zoomed off to breakfast.
A few hours later we crossed into Louisiana and were greeted by a commissioner of Cameron Parish. "We're proud of our mosquitoes here in Louisiana," he said. "They're the largest in the nation."
[Next month: Hard butts hit Florida!]