“What Are Records For?”

September 14, 2000

In Corinne's words, "the same thing as rules!"

That's right, records are meant to be broken, and I did it with a vengeance. Without any doubt, this was my best ride in years.

I've had two other rides this year in which my average speed was over 18 mph. Actually, they were all this month: 9/1, 9/5, and 9/7. The last two were both shorter rides, approximately 21 miles each. The first one was the full "almost 29 miles", but was also the slowest of the three rides.

This ride, though, left no room for doubt. A full length "almost 29 miles" ride, with the highest average speed of the year: 18.37 mph. My previous high was 18.18 mph, on the fifth with a shorter ride.

I felt like greased lightning.

My friend-and-employee Flip had no idea what that means, because translating it into French (his native tongue) just doesn't work.

To explain it, I told him that lightning is very, very fast. If you could grease it up, it would obviously go even faster! (I didn't make this phrase up, it's been around for awhile, it was the name of one of the cars in the movie Grease.)

If you could grease lightning, it would have been able to keep up with me on this ride. Maybe.