Monday, January 02, 2006

Two wheels, wind, and some rednecks

Today it was 70 degrees, so to not ride a bike outside would've been a sin. Nevermind that a storm was blowing in - it was warm outside! (Tomorrow it's supposed to be 48 degrees - WTF?) So on January 2nd, I rode in shorts and a short-sleeved bike jersey with my friends. I guess I was anxious to go and got ready a little too early, so I took advantage of the 5 minutes I had to spare before going to meet my friends:


My husband took this of me because he thought it was funny that I was dressed to go for a ride but I was sitting on the couch, knitting. I find nothing funny about that. Perfectly normal.




Today was also a day for the a-holes to be out in full force. Around here, we call them rednecks. As we started out, we formed a pace line (one cyclist right behind another, riding single file - you also get the benefit of the person in front of you shielding you from the wind resistance) with me at the rear. About 5 minutes into our ride, I heard squealing brakes behind me, and my heart rate shot up to about 300bpm. I looked behind me and saw some damn redneck in a van. I could tell that he had slammed on his brakes not because he was about to hit me, but because he thought it would be funny. Funny? I beg to differ. Scary, mean, and downright dangerous is more like it. I was quite shaken up, but we turned off the road (not even a busy one, mind you) soon afterward, and I calmed down. Later, we had to deal with rednecks in pickups zooming past us and more rednecks driving by and yelling. I don't know what the deal was today.

In addition to rednecks, there was wind to deal with. Wind that made you feel like you were riding backwards. Wind that took your words away. Not fun. Fortunately, the headwind that we had going out turned into a fun tailwind coming back in.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of my Goddess of Warmer Weather Sweater (every time I work on it, it gets really warm and I can't wear it) as well as my progress on the Malabrigo Shrug. It's coming along quite nicely, I must say. Only sleeves left.

1 comment:

Niquie said...

redknecks are dumb and need to be ran over by their own trucks. What you were talking about is one of the reasons I'm super afraid to ride a bicycle on a main road or any semibusy road. I get yelled at enough walking my dog in my apartment complex.

I really like the colors you picked for your shurg too!