A cool thing about beginning the bike commute again is you have a dozen or so random encounters each day, just riding into work. Things happen. You bump into friends you haven't seen in months, you see people who aren't friends but who are in that commuter bubble, around you every day, and you see some crazy shit because you're moving slower than you would move in a car and the world is more easily observed in slo mo. My day today? In no particular order...
- I ran into Erik (Erik L?) from NCVC and we had a nice chat about racing cross on the way up the trail. I was mildly suffering, since my legs aren't in the same zip code as the rest of me, but it was really pleasant to speak with a racing friend. You know who racing friends are, right? They're people you race with and do bike stuff with, and you'd give 'em the shirt off your back, but you only ever see them on the bike. It's nearly heart-attack inducing when you run into a racing friend at a "straight" event like work.
- A fixed gear bike has a different feel than a geared bike from the moment you get on it. The most noticeable things are the butt wear, and stiff knees. We take for granted the first 10 minutes of a ride on a geared bike while our knees warm up and we soft pedal. On the fixed gear, there's no warmup, and the knees grumble. As for the hind quarter... well, you pedal constantly and don't move around. Your butt takes a beating. Of course the fixie has it's rewards, which... I'll think of some soon. Oh yeah, it's hard. Wait, that can't be a reward...
- I stopped to help a guy who was staring at his front derailer with a purpose, as if the "Shimano Alivio" lettering held the secret of life. "You okay?" "You need a hand?" Nothing. I stopped to help him and as I'm turning the fixie around nearly got pegged by a guy who saw the dude stopped, stood up, and figured "large guy, bent over, looking at derailer, fixie stalled in trail... MUST MEAN TOWNLINE SPRINT!" Good to see the Pathletes are in mid-season form already.
- I saw a triathlete going up the Cap Crescent this morning. She was twisted up sideways like she had severe scoliosis or something, and had both arms wrapped around the right extension on her aerobar. She may not of crashed just then, but if she rides like that much, she crashes lots of other times. Gotta love triathletes' creative interpretations of proper bike position.
- I got passed by a guy on an electric bike this morning. He was hauling ass downhill. I got to an uphill though and blew past him, despite his furious pedaling. How can you have an electric motor assist and still be that slow? I'd have made fun of him but I'm not that heartless and mean.
- I was sweaty when I got to work today. And happy. It was nice. Everybody commented on how happy I seemed today.
- A kid who reeked, reeeeeeked of marijuana wobbled up to me on his department store mountain bike near George Washington Circle. He was stoned to the bejeezus. "Dude. Do you know where I could get a sandwich around here? You know, a really good six dollar sandwich?" I had smelled him before he even spoke to me. It was like he'd taken a bath in bongwater and then hung out in a house that was on fire only the house was made of marijuana and hippie bones. I told him, "wrong town, pal. But maybe if you try Pizza Paradiso in Georgetown, up there on the left by about 33rd Street, they might have a happy hour special or something." Shit. Guess I forgot about Subway's Five Dollar Foot Long. Kid was so stoned he probably went to Dean & DeLuca, but still.
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Speaking of random encounters...I was on the phone today discussing sprinkler layouts for a building I'm working on with your friend Tim Parham. He told me about the C&O ride you guys did a coupla years ago. Turns out I've ridden with him too; perhaps I'll see him on the road again soon. And you too perhaps.
Funny. Tim's a great guy. Don't tell him I said that though.
Last Sunday I had to go to work and nurse a sick firewall, and saw my commute route in a different light, with all the mums and dads and kids wobbling all over the cycleway. But it's cool, it was Sunday, and I actually got to appreciate that the route is really quite pretty on a sunny afternoon, trundling along at about 15kph. I came across a dad hunched over his little boy's bike's crank by the side of the cycleway. I stopped: "Need some help or tools, mate?" Turns out the pedals on the kid's very shiny toy-shop bike were loose, and one had fallen off on his first ride. A few seconds with my toolkit fixed the problem, and we went our separate ways.
Pedalling home I was thinking of how much we've lost. My dad cycled to school each day (there was a war on you know), taught me to ride, gave me my first tools and taught me to use them, so I could fix my bike when I in turn rode to school or round the neighbourhood. But this dad I met had presumably relied on some slapdash nitwit at the shop to fit the pedals, hadn't checked them, and wasn't carrying any tools on his ride. On the other hand, he was out riding with his son, not sitting at home watching the cricket on TV, doing what dads are supposed to. And you've got to respect that:
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Do not judge what you don't understand.
You can't tell why Ms Triathlete is riding like that... she's probably a test case for some fancy new ergonomics designed to enhance frontal surface presentation in a crosswind.
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