both sides of the bike
i posted 50 or so bike flyers and he took most down following right behind me. why sir? well i was a punk, or some sibilance of one, is what he pieced together. a grade above graffiti artist, yet dressed in relaxed fit blue jeans and a button down shirt. he, a local merchant, accused me of uglifying his street and ultimately bringing down the neighborhood. me, the guy who had attended more neighborhood planning and association meetings than anyone else in the city, this side of the private sector. no sir, i thought to myself, we're actually on the same side so stick with me. i've spent nearly the last 12 months designing and constructing a major historic chunk of your streets, complete with fancy new light posts, on the hope that a few more punk kids will come next year and cover the brushed aluminum finish with a flyer or two. just imagine it sir. at some point you won't be able to manage it all and the streets shall runneth over with people doing all of the things we didn't plan for them to do. you won't know what to do...I actually failed to say most of this and stood somewhat receptive to his own speech. he went on how the new bikers in the area were hurting business, with which i managed to inform him of the following week's transportation planning meeting. take that! in the end we were both a little thrown off though that we'd both taken the offensive arguing for the same thing. by the way, after hundreds more flyers did make their way around the city and almost all our energy expended to get it there, the second bike summit was a success.
meanwhile i'd been training and raising money for my MS bike ride to across the coastal plains. six months ago i embarked on that with the purchase of an actual road bike, and the following pedal clips and florescent paraphernalia that would go with it. i knew it'd be hard both physically and physiologically to, you know, be a cyclist instead of just a guy who bikes. i in fact had been taking it a bit too casually throughout the summer in exchange for other agendas, but the early days of fall were spent with my crotch hugging the frame coasting and climbing the hills of bexar county. and then on the big weekend, i found that yes i am comfortable in my skin tight uniform chugging pickle juice and applying butter to my shammy. 150 miles into it, as my team and i turned a corner to see a bay bridge below and the comforting corpus christi skyline backdropped by the gulf of mexico i realized that i'd be back next year and maybe at a faster pace.
but for now i'm back to just the guy who bikes.
