Vi are you not varing zee Lycra?

I know they say love is the best feeling in the entire world, but I'd have to say a close second is that of laughing until you cry. Now, I'm not talking just a wet spot in the corner of the eyes. I'm talking genuine tears. Snorting. Hyperventilating for lack of air in the lungs. A better abdominal workout in four minutes than you can get in an hour of yoga.

And it's even better when it takes you by surprise.

The other night, I was sitting on the floor of my bathroom, brushing my teeth and reading a book--just my usual bedtime ritual. The book had been entertaining already, but that night's passage had me rolling.

As an author, I know how challenging it is to write truly funny prose. It takes skill. And so, I'm going to share the excerpt in full. If you like it a lot, go buy the book. It's a good read. If you don't like it enough to buy the book, I hope it at least brings you a smile (and a snort or two.) 

The book: The Hungry Cyclist: Pedalling the Americas in Search of the Perfect Meal
The author: British writer, cyclist, and food lover, Tom Kevill-Davies
Tom's website: http://www.thehungrycyclist.com/

Thank you, Mr. Davies, for the laughs and for making me want to ride off on an adventure of my own. (By the way, if you happen to find this you should know a few things: I really enjoyed your videos and photos from your trek along the Mekong in Laos, as I've been there myself; I love your book; we're about the same age; and my mom thinks we should go on a date.)

Please enjoy this snippet from pages 255-257 in, "The Hungry Cyclist":

It was as I was taking a bite from a bunuelo that the unmistakable outline of another cycle tourist became recognisable on the crest of the hill. Running from the shade of the trees, shouting and waving my arms like a crazed groupie, crumbs of breakfast spewing from my mouth, I gestured towards him and towards my bicycle as if to say, 'Look, look, I'm one of your lot.' But it became very clear, very quickly that, as cycle tourists go, Torsten, a middle-aged German, and myself had come from very different moulds.

'Desayuno?' I suggested, handing Torsten a delightfully warm arepa wrapped in a grease-stained paper napkin. 'No,' he replied unequivocally, pulling a plastic sack of what appeared to be birdseed and a bruised banana from the bag between his handlebars.

'Cafe?'

'No!' came another stern negative, and I watched his prominent Adam's apple bounce up and down as he emptied what remained of a bottle of fluorescent-pink energy drink into his mouth.

Cycle tourists are like dogs, and with our brief introduction over we began sniffing each other's bottoms. How much weight are you carrying? What pedals are you using? Caliper or disk brakes? Drop handlebars or flat? Slick tyres or knobbly ones? A derailleur or internal gear system? Sniff, sniff.

Torsten's bicycle was brilliantly clean. Every dirt-free component glistened in the sun as though it had just come out of the box. His minimal equipment was meticulously packed in four clean Ortlieb panniers. His entire setup was as spotless and streamlined as he was, and together Torsten and his bicycle were a testament to German efficiency. I was not. As he ran his questioning eyes over my untidy rig, I could hear the white-coated technicians in his mind tutting in baffled disbelief at the dirty, overloaded, scruffy excuse for a cyclist and bicycle that stood before him.

'Vas is das?' I heard them say as he took in my colourful collection of souvenir stickers, which must have added a few grams of extra weight. 'Vas is dis?' they proclaimed at the chunky plastic hamburger bell, leather dream catcher, rosary beads and the various other lucky charms and trinkets that hung from my handlebars, weighing me down further.

'And vi are you not varing zee Lycra. Nein nein nein, Zis is very inefficient.'

This silent ritual over with, Torsten unclipped his multi-buttoned digital cycle computer and thrust it towards my face. 'Alaska!' he barked proudly, displaying his total distance. A figure close to 12,000 miles. 'Six meses,' he then broadcast in Spanglish. I hung my head in shame. In six months Torsten had cycled the same distance it had taken me over a year to cover. And it showed. We could not have looked any more different. Short, overweight, unshaven and clad in baggy shorts and a crusty, sweat-stained T-shirt, I was the antithesis of the man who towered over me. All elbows and knees, his tall, gangly frame of bones and sinew was tightly packed in a figure-hugging fluorescent Lycra outfit that accentuated every one of his lumps and bumps in disturbing detail. An oversized helmet dwarfed his long, thin face. He gave the impression of a man ready to be fired from a cannon in a circus.

We were an odd couple, but with Torsten's tortured Spanglish and my small anthology of German picked up from old war films, we established that we were heading the same way and would ride on together. 'Schnell! Schnell!' I cried, climbing back into the saddle. Leaving behind a bemused crowd of breakfasting locals, who had witnessed this bizarre roadside union, we rode together into the foothills of the Andes and towards Colombia's second city. Medellin.