Shortly after I graduated from arch school I did a stint designing mega houses in Northern Virginia. I had sold my NYC urban assault moto bike and bought a beautiful (yet primitive by today’s standards) Cannondale mountain bike. My friend Jason and I used to ditch work early and ride the trails around Great Falls Park where the Potomac has class 5 rapids. We inadvertently had chosen a park that was frequented by some of Langley’s newest residents, fresh from mostly military careers, and now in the big leagues at ‘The Shop’.
In short, some of them were just major pricks, and even though I had a bell on my handlebars to warn them of our proximity (to which I got endless grief from hard core cyclists), they often refused to let us pass on the steep downhill single tracks. So Jason and I invented a game to make our rides more interesting and sporting.
We each bought beat up briefcases at the Tyson’s Corner Salvation Army. We would approach each other from opposite ends of the park and surreptitiously, in full view of one of these guys, exchange briefcases and ride off in separate directions.
Since these boys were on the verge of distinguished spook careers, they felt it necessary to chase after one of us. We got a great deal of exercise and delight dragging them up and down the very technical terrain. A few times they even followed us home and parked down the street with their ‘innocuous’ government cars pretending to read a map or newspaper while we sipped beers and cleaned our bikes.
One day I had a guy very determined to catching me. I had taken him to the top of a steep shale ridge and was roaring down the other side, intent on ditching him and linking up with Jason for some beers. As I barreled downwards, I spotted two trees on either side of the trail, so close that there was probably less than an inch to spare on either side of my handle bars. I did the math in my head and went for it. At the last millisecond I saw that there was a giant spider at face level in her web between the trees. As I was committed at this point, I went right through the middle and his web wrapped around my helmet.
I came to a not so graceful halt, ripped off my helmet trying to figure out where the spider was. In the midst of this the guy caught up to me and was trying to figure out why I was dancing around like a mad man with fingers franticly combing my hair. I regained my dignity and went over to retrieve the bike and briefcase out of the bushes. I opened up the case and offered him a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich. He huffed off in disgust.
About 20 years later I got a 911 call from a guy who was passing through Seattle on his motor yacht headed to Alaska the next morning. He needed an electrical problem fixed. After talking with him while I diagnosed and fixed his problem it became evident that he was an instructor at Langley and remembered me and Jason. In fact they had assembled a file on us. He told me, “Yea, we figured out pretty fast who you guys were and what you were up to. We thought it was a great way to train some of our slower recruits…”
I never did find the spider.
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