What a crazy ride it’s been. What a crazy ride it was last night. So much happened. Of course there were the friends and the fountain, the riding and the music - all the usual fun.
I peeled off downtown, just to take a break and go fast for a minute, then I lost them. I was in Chinatown, which can be a tricky place to stop and look at the ride tracker. But I did it anyway at a spot where I felt I had at least two minutes before anybody could approach me physically. A man walked up out of nowhere. He was wearing a sea captains hat and introduced himself as Captain Curtis. He said I matched my bike - we were both elegant and fast-looking. He asked politely if he could touch my handlebars and I surprised both off us when I said yes. I did follow it up with a "but don’t mess with me". He agreed, touched the handlebars and moved on.
From there I rode up Broadway, and I do mean up. It's an uphill multi-lane road in the middle of downtown with no bike lanes. About a dozen motorcycles soon engulfed me. We rode together for a dozen blocks and it was tantalizing! I felt I had joined a new club, a motorcycle club. Then they turned left and I continued on and re-joined my real club.
To the amazement and dismay of the group, we headed to the Burnside skate park, a swarm of us showed up in a place that is clearly not our territory. Several dudes from our group climbed up on a box truck and a lady nearby freaked out yelling at them. Another man without a shirt jumped out from behind a van and pushed over my bike, along with a few others. Then he continued to rampage through the crowd tossing bikes here and there while I ran ahead of him yelling "Danger! Danger!". I don’t know if it helped.
We finally moved on and right after we left a skateboarder in our group flew off his skateboard, which skated on its own right in between my two wheels as I was moving. I feel lucky not to have fallen.
Soon we were at Ladd's Circle hanging around causing trouble. After a while the group took off heading north and alas I live south and had to work in the morning, so I began to peel off. But then I saw a friend pull offer and we decided to have a peel off end party on our own and sit together on the bench and look at the moon and talk about old times. As I was leaving, he asked if we should listen to one more song and I said yes if I can sing it!
I rolled out soon after and was almost creamed by a pizza delivery driver, who cut the corner into his driveway as I was proceeding forward on the road, with my headlight blaring and my useless right of way being disrespected. I followed him into the pizza place, letting him know he was not getting away with it. I asked for the boss and told him what happened. Meanwhile, the driver jerk guy kept saying, "lady, you zipped around the corner" and "lady, I didn't see you" and "lady, you came out of nowhere" and even "lady, did you expect me to slam my brakes on?!". I made sure he understood I did not zip anywhere, I merely rode my bike in a forward motion and that seeing me is his job as a driver, not to mention a paid driver, and that, yes, I expect him to slam his brakes on instead of hit a human.
After that lovely exchange, I rode the few remaining miles home expecting another story at every turn but happily finding just quiet and peace. I do love my peripheral urban address. I talked myself into doing one small bonus hill in preparation for the next felony flats hill killerz ride and finally made it home to bed.
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