the last thing i wanted to do when my alarm went off this sunday morning was ride.

no, not true; the last thing i wanted to do was leave the sanctuary of a dark and warm bed, next to a dark-haired, warm lady, to walk down some dark, cold stairs, dress in the dark, ride in the cold dark, and stick my bike on a trainer to just be as fat and slow as i was the last time i did that.

of course, i got up anyway.

i'm paying good money for this. i've spent thousands of dollars on riding clothes and bikes and bike parts. the least i can do is show up to a 6:30 a.m. self-led computrainer ride and hammer myself until the sun comes up. so i did. and it made everything wonderful.

hooked up to a computrainer, the bike is held there, suspended in mid-air, by attachment to its rear axle. the front wheel remains stationary. the bike couldn't fall over if it wanted to. i go nowhere. going nowhere is a great place to be when contemplating things. i contemplated a lot of things today, and forgot about all of them on the ride home, because then i was going somewhere, and there was much to pay attention to, mostly as a matter of survival. the front wheel moved. i look at it periodically, because i am very proud of it. i built it a few nights ago when i should have been doing homework. i followed jobst brandt step by step. i did everything mike t said to do. i took the longest i've ever taken to build a wheel, since my first one, and most of this time was in the tensioning of all the spokes, a quarter turn at a time. all the spokes were greased at each end. all the nipple beds were greased before i even put nipples into the rim. i turned things slowly. i repeated sequences. i took breaks. i allowed for unwinding of the spokes. i kept tensioning. i dished.

and then, after three and a half hours, there was a wheel.

it was the nicest wheel i had ever built. the parts were not a lot of specialness, or at least, not the hub. the lacing pattern was staid and correct and the opposite of flashy. the nipples were brass. the spokes crossed 3 times. the labels all match up. nothing special, at all. but when i spun that wheel in the truing stand, it was hard to tell that it was spinning at all when i looked at it dead on. it was the straightest, roundest wheel i had ever built. i think it was the wheel i had built with the least apprehension, and the most patience. i must be getting old.

i was talking to my lady friend a couple of days later, and one thing led to another, and there i was, being stupid and overtalking my abilities in one arena or another, to compensate for my lack of abilities on the bike, particularly as compared to her and her lady riding friends. it's the truth: she's just stronger and faster. and it's also true that i'm just getting older, and being sidelined by injuries (to bikes or bodies) and overworked schedules doesn't make getting faster any easier. i let all of this boil up, and boil over. i was stupid. i sounded like the youth. i flew off the handle. i attacked her friends because i was afraid of how weak i really was. this is not getting old. this is acting like a dumb, shameful, gutless kid with nothing to show for hard-learned lessons. this is like falling and throwing the bike (as if it crashed by itself).

of course, i cooled off, changed my language, and apologized.

this is how it goes when you get old and patient. you come back around, use a different tack, make it right, learn for next time, emerge better, or at least, not behind. i went around and around that wheel more than 6 full times, tightening each spoke by a quarter turn. each time around, i did stress relief of all types on all the spokes. a ping here. a pang there. more turns. more relief. a true wheel. i suspended a cylinder of aluminum in a woven web of stainless steel rods inside a round, straight aluminum hoop. i did that right, 28 times. and for some reason, i still couldn't carry on a non-offensive conversation. oh man...

hero

it has been a few weeks since that fateful thursday, and i've had time to mull it all over.

the usual thursday sufferfest at the hands of WattsUp computrainers had left me depleted, and thoroughly satisfied with my own exhaustion. i was getting stronger. things were getting harder. and the pain of it all only reaffirmed the goal: be willing. willing to make it hurt. willing to keep going when it does. willing to see it through to the finish. willing to exhaust.

i left the warehouse in a light drizzle, as so many days of april had smeared themselves across the forecast. it had been raining for over a month.

today's rain would be different.

as i turned the pedals and wished for the rain pants i had forgone in my sweaty haste to leave, the rain turned, and became something else. downpour would be an understatement. fat, pregnant drops of warm water cascaded in sheets from the sky. i pulled over to affix my lights, but neglected my rain jacket. it was just going to be wet.

accelerating out of the intersection, i met with lines of traffic, rough roads, and winds gusting to well over the freeway speed limit. the storm, sudden and lashing, was of biblical proportion. and i had not built an ark. the traffic and rough roads steered me to line between lanes, and i ground through the pedal strokes, working to maintain speed and direction in the whipping wind and slashing rain. i could mostly see. i could halfway pedal. and all of a sudden, the traffic accelerated.

now past the submerged creekbed of the right of the right lane, i would attempt to move back to my 'rightful' or 'proper' position on the road. i don't remember if i steered first and looked after, or if i looked as i steered, or if the wind was pushing me and my oxygen-deprived brain and spent legs were too slow in reacting, but all of a sudden that slow-moving city truck was right on me, and the horn sounded.

this is not the time to begin judgement of error or calculate one's reactions to the daily occurrences of traffic and urban cohabitation. sometimes we get along and sometimes we are too tightly packed and sometimes there is friction and the rain does nothing to lessen the rub.

i stuck out my finger and moved over anyway, furious with myself for going slowly and furious for reacting the way i had and furious with the wind for making me look stupid and furiously, furiously pedaling into a wall of rain.

the truck passed me then, around the bend, not with a wide berth but with one of consideration for all lanes of traffic, and i caught it and passed it one light later. two lights after that, "i had cooled my head and warmed my heart", and i waited. when the truck rolled up, i waved, the driver rolled down his window, and i told him i apologized for giving him the finger back there. my bad.

(no further explanation needed; i was just owning up to my own stupidity, and working to maintain positive relations between riders and drivers. he doesn't need to know about the wind or rain or that i'm just trying to get home and take my kids to daycare or that my legs are spent or that i stay up nights worrying about how my at-risk job working with at-risk kids is going to pay for said daycare. none of this is his fault. i shouldn't have ridden in front of his truck and then given him the finger about it.)

this part is what really gave me goosebumps.

after accepting my apology, the driver took it upon himself to speculate, and give me some advice. being proud, insecure, and embarrassed, i hate getting advice. regardless, he gave it to me, saying that i need to be more careful; that i don't want to die on my way to work; that i want to die being a hero, not riding my bike in the rain; that i should have a nice day.

it was the hero part that just about killed me.