Just at the top of the hill was the AZL station. As I
pulled up to the entryway in my
Mercedes 240D, I once again gazed with quiet
amusement at the now familiar site of the
cables stretching all across the landscape, like some
kind of half-finished spiderweb. As usual, I
pulled into lane
#3, Mid-City.
Having secured my place in the queue, it was time to
bring out the hook. Modern cars have
an electric hook extender, of course, but my old
Mercedes was a retrofit, and it was entirely
manual. I put it in park and got out of the car,
kicking up the driver's side hook release
tucked under the body as I did so. I slid out the boom
and rotated it up, then pushed it back
in place. I went around to the passenger side and did
the same thing, and the two parts
joined above the roof of the car to form the hook.
As I walked around the back of the car, I made sure
to grab the buffer pad from the trunk.
Invariably some idiot would forget about the buffer
pad until he got to the front of the line,
which would really hold things up. Luckily, the
system was designed so that even if you
manage to attach to the line without the pad, the
barrier doesn't open unless both car and
pad are securely attached.
After a few minutes, it was my turn to hook in. I got
out of the car and wrapped the buffer
pad around the zip line. The pad served the dual
purpose of preventing you from ramming
the car in front of you, as well as limiting your speed
down the line. Usually it was just a
continuous stream of cars down the line, so speed
wasn't really an issue; late at night,
though, you could really get up to some dangerous
velocities if not for the safety
mechanisms built into the hook and the buffer pad.
Every now and then you'd hear about a
runaway car, of course. It wasn't pretty, but heck… It
was still safer than the freeways.
Usually faster, too—not to mention cheaper.
Having wrapped the pad around the line, I got back
in and drove forward until the hook
snagged the line. It had taken a couple of tries the
first few times, but by this point I was
pretty much a master at it. Less than a minute later,
the car in front of me departed and it
was go time. The light turned green and the barrier
opened, revealing a sheer drop less
than twenty yards ahead. I slowly pressed the
accelerator as I led up for the “leap of
faith”. No matter how many times I did this, and no
matter how safe they assured me it
was, I never quite got comfortable with the feeling. I
don't think anyone did. As I
approached the edge, I closed my eyes and punched
the gas. The gut-wrenching feeling of
falling gave way to the bounce of the cable after
what felt like an eternity, but in reality
was merely a split-second. From here on there was
nothing to do for the next twelve
minutes but put the car in neutral, shut off the
engine, turn on the radio, and enjoy the
view.