wheeeee

so...i was riding to school yesterday and i was pushing myself pretty hard, sweating and panting...the whole bit. and yet the entire time i had a smile on my face thinking "man, this is just fucking cool."

really, i should have got a bike a couple of years ago. however, the money and the thought process never meshed up till this spring when i finally got mine.
it was love at first sight.
well, i loved it, i'm not sure how it felt.
i'm still not really sure.

i think it just tolerates me.

during a recent (ok, this morning) conversation with a friend, he pointed out that a car is faster. my response was "y'and?"
for 95% of the commuting that i do on my own, when no one else is with me, it's just easier for me to ride. it's more relaxing, i don't have to deal with as many fucktards in traffic (except for the ones that have decided that bikes really AREN'T oncoming traffic (yeah, this means you mr. police man that i almost got in a fight with yesterday)).

but really, from the house to school is 4 miles. from the north end of town where i live to the south side of town to the school where L. works, it's about 10 miles. from where i live to the funky little store on the east side of town where i get incense is about 6 miles. from the house to the bike shop where i got my bike it's just over 7 miles.
none of these are particularly difficult rides, with the ground being "mostly flat". the longest of the rides will take, with a moderate amount of effort an hour.

yeah, it's a bit longer than the 20 minutes it'd take you in a car going around town on the highway, but you don't have to deal with as much stress and general impatience when you can just ride around a work zone and not even have to stop. unlike the people in their cars.

i was talking to a friend yesterday and he mentioned that i was going to have some serious postpartum going this winter when i couldn't ride every day. i said "what makes you think i'm going to stop? I know how to dress warmly."
i'm just not sure how my skinny ass tires are going to take to the wet/icy/snowy roads. that may get a bit interesting.
the clipless pedals i'm supposed to be receiving as a hand-me-down present (yay!!!) will probably not get used much this winter as combat boots will become the fashionable footwear.

on another note, and probably my last one for this long and rambling post that no one will read, there's a new'ish coffee shop in the outlying downtown area that we'd never noticed before. we were coming back from the theatre and we saw a sign for the place.
somehow we'd never noticed this sign before, which is amusing since it's at least 20 feet tall going up the side of the building.

i've ridden by there dozens of times heading downtown.
it didn't exist till the other day.

maybe they should oh i dunno, consider putting a sign out front as well? hmm...

so i stopped in to check it out and possibly get a cup of coffee since it was getting cooler out (i know, that's supposed to be a bad idea when you're riding, but oh well).
ok now......several things amused me about this place.

1) for an establishment with the words coffee and bicycles in their name, one would think that they would have bike racks of some sort so you could chain your bike to.

yeah, not so fuckin much. i had to chain my bike to the worst possible place (a handicapped parking sign.../boggle) and hope for the best.

when i actually went inside, i noticed an impressive collection of bikes hanging from the ceiling.
it was very nice to look at really till you stop to think that all the bikes hanging over the seats and couches are just ripe to come down in the middle of someones latte.

the other thing that amused me about the place was that they really didn't seem to want people that ride bikes in their store (as if the lack of bike racks wasn't enough of a hint).
i walked in semi-sweaty and had my helmet and my slightly over sized messenger bag on and they actually looked at me funny. granted, the hawaiian shirt may have had something to do with that as well, but fuck em.

i managed to instantly feel out of place and made some feeble excuse as to why i was there and quickly scurried out.

so.....i probably won't go back there all that much.

i'd much rather go to my favorite coffee shop downtown where they actually have bike racks and don't look at you funny when you're one of the few bike riders downtown that actually wears a helmet.

i think i had my first real encounter with the hipster trend yesterday.
at least that's what it seemed like to me.
at least there wasn't a bunch of fixies chained up out front, although that would've completed the vibe.

anyway....i think that's all for now.
maybe more later.