Combination

It’s right up there with this as winner of most annoying song in history, but it sure inspires an excellent bike ride, as the Combination Pizza Hit and Taco Bell drew us way across the lake and through a maze of suburban neighborhoods, before appearing, in all its shiny plastic glory miles and miles away from our start—but still less than half of the way we would eventually ride on a summer night so soft and lovely on planet Earth that rocks were falling from the heavens in hopes of joining the fun.

I only saw one meteor streak across the sky, but I guess that was enough given all the other stellar delights I got to enjoy, including a forest trail ride on what I assume was—strangely juxtaposed—a campus of the evil computer software empire.

And besides, how could a person want anything more when he gets to hang out and drink beer in the middle of the night at a huge concrete bowl devoted specifically to bicycle racing and even has the opportunity to savor the combination thrill of victory and agony of defeat when both wagering on and participating in two-wheeled suds-fueled competitions himself?

Destinations are commonly shouted out as the bike gang leaves a place—“The Knarr! Goldies! Harborview!” but I never before remember one called for (and reached!) something like 18 miles and more than an hour away, and yet I arrived at the College Inn Pub just as last call was announced from within as I locked up outside and even in time for a nightcap, another combination of luck and good timing on an evening of such unusual alliances.

Just think of all the world’s dynamic duos: Batman and Robin, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, King Kong vs. Godzilla, even Combination fucking Pizza Hut and Taco Bell; worthy candidates all, but in my book, pale when compared to the best pairing of all: you and your bike.