Saturday, March 15, 2008

Odd Saturday ride

The day dawned rather chilly with a breeze out of the South and since typically I prefer to go against the wind in the first half of my ride I decided to head South towards Sacramento County. That route takes me through some neighborhoods before I get to the bigger boulevards and Highways. My intent was to take it kinda easy since I had a pretty good week on the bike and I'm only just now feeling like my bout with Bronchial-Pneumonia is truly behind me.
So there I was pushing the wind along at about 16 mph and noticed there was a person sitting in the parked truck just ahead of me, instinctively I veered slightly towards the center of the street in case he opened his truck door and boom...sure enough the door flung open and the dude jumped out without even looking around. I was still on a line that would take me rather close to him but I held my line as he slammed the door and rather purposefully made his way towards the rear of his truck. As I passed him I realized "Oh, I know this guy"..It was my good Buddy Jeff Scammon....creator of Wild West Radio and former owner of the Owl Club in old town Roseville out working his Real Estate gig. So I said "Hey there" as I rolled past him. No response. I hit the brakes a bit and circled back to say hi. As I approached Jeff was already into his Salesman BS mode with the bespectacled woman standing in the front doorway of a house he was apparently involved with. This time I slowed in front of the house and half yelled "Hey Jeff". Still no response although the woman of the house was now looking at me. Once again I did a 180 degree turn and this time rolled slowely past the house on the sidewalk and called his name again. The woman kinda half-waved at me and looked at Jeff who was apparently just INTO some seriously heavy spiel. Obviously, despite all that, he never knew I was there. After that last attempt I just got back on the hoods and continued trudging in a Southerly direction.
After making my way around and past the decommissioned McClellan Air Force Base I got a call from Zack about whether or not he should run the disk wheel in the 10+mph winds during his time Trial in Exetor. Soon after hanging up I turned West on Elkhorn road and noticed that there were a few local bicyclists clogging the bike lane ahead of me. I managed to get around a couple of the rude bastards but was now gaining on one that was towing a trailer. The funky ill-designed trailer was bobbing and weaving up and down as well as side to side. I looked behind me to check on traffic because I knew I was gonna need to go out into the traffic lane to get around him. Unfortunately there were a dozen or so cars rapidly approaching on the four lane boulevard. Even more unfortunately as I turned back around I watched in amazement as the guys trailer came loose from his bike and was now rolling diagonally across the road into the path of the oncoming vehicles.
I immediately slowed and turned back to the traffic and started quickly waving my arm to help alert them to the hazard in their path. Luckily the two cars leading the way were on top of it and were already slowing down. As I rolled up to the now panicked man that was frantically trying to remove his garbage from the middle of the highway I asked "Do you need any help".....which prompted him to scream at me "Fuck You...leave me alone Asshole". So once again I put my hands back on the hoods and went back to my pedaling. I must report that one of the cars did roll past me kinda slow and the driver gave me thumbs up sign...apparently appreciating my efforts to warn my fellow travelers about the moron at work zone.
The next 18 or so miles of my 37 mile jaunt were thankfully uneventful and I started thinking of lunch which was now less than a half hour away. As I approached within a mile of my home I passed the final traffic light of the day and noticed a rather large human walking in the middle of the bike lane directly towards me. As we drew closer to each other I noticed that the traffic off my left shoulder was very heavy and there was no room to move over.
By now we were 20 feet apart and I could see that he was completely drunk/stoned and intently talking on a cell phone. Just as I thought we were about to collide I yelled at him and he suddenly lunged to the side just enough for me to slide past him as a truck was flying past by what seemed inches to my left. As I regained a line to the right side of the bike lane I heard him yell back at me that sounded like "You Moron biker WTF?".
And that my friends is what I call The Saturday Tri-fecta.........if true weirdness, oddities and mishaps come in threes....well I'm just glad those are over.

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