Snow tires and Semi trucks
By Doug Johnson
20 Mar 2008
"That was totally wicked!", I screamed in the kitchen with my face caked with ice. My family just shook their head. Since it snows and gets to about twenty degrees where I live, it takes a bit of effort to ride your bicycle to work when the drifts are starting to pile up. My family has called me crazy more than once, and it might be true, but I'm giggling every time I pedal past the four dollars a gallon.
I didn't start out to be this hard core, and when people see me in my gear in the winter, their eyes glaze over as if I'm Lance Armstrong training for the Tour de France...I've read his book....not likely a short legged, bald, middle aged man is headed that far, but hey! Everyone can pretend can't they? The reality is that my bicycling emerged as a habit slowly over time for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that when my kids were little our cars were always POS cars that were somewhere between not starting and about to die.
My favorite car story was when the officer pulled me over for having no headlights. I handed him the knob that said, "Lights" on it attached to the wired that had disintegrated. Fixing it was on my "To Do" list write after "Buy diapers" and "Win the Lottery". Needless to say, I was glad it was a full moon because I had to drive home in the dark on back country roads after the officer let me off with a warning. Cars? Who needs them...
Oh ya, there's that second thing. I'm a horribly distracted driver. That moron you are cussing out in rush hour traffic because they are wandering around with a turn signal blinking forever? That moron you are cursing because they made you slam on the brakes as they blew the red light? Well one is off the road. We're not all morons...we're just thinking about something else. We might even have a couple of screaming toddlers in the back seat that we're trying swat while driving.
So one day about twelve years ago, after getting one to many, "Damn,-that's-just-the-ugliest-truck-I've-ever seen...and-you-can't-drive-without-your-lights-on-at-night, idiot...are-you-on-drugs?" tickets from the police, I tossed my bicycle into the bed of the truck and decided to ride it to do my shopping around town. It was just a couple of miles, but those were two miles my truck didn't have to pretend about running.
I remember my wheels wobbling down the street with my street clothes on. I remember trucking my bicycle a couple miles away from work to increase my distance.
So fast forward twelve years later and I haven't used a car in two years to get to work. A few days last year, I carpooled with my son, but this year I broke down and bought a snow tire for my mountain bike and made the entire winter on my bicycle.
Frozen face and all, I love flipping over the hoods of cars when they don't see me or pedaling down the main strip trying to avoid someone opening a door. (Don't tell my wife...she says to be safe.)
No matter how you slice it, I'm giggling when the has pumps add more to the price...screw you...oil companies. Make a buck off the Cadillac Escalade....never mind, make a hundred bucks of the Escalade. I'd rather have a semi truck try to shave my ear hairs in the morning.
Oh ya, the biggest bonus is that I get to take pictures nobody else sees. They're safe and toasty in their cars cursing that bicyclist on the side of road who has stopped to take pictures of who knows what.
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