Big Bikes

No We Can't All Just Get Along

I have no idea, really, why Fat Tuesday has been replaced with "Let's talk about anything but how fat I am Tuesday." Ya sure, I rode for about five hours today, and ya I was at a massive caloric deficit by the time I limped up to the Whole Foods by my house, but I might have over-rewarded myself just a little bit. This is what happens when you spend the last 25 minutes of your ride scheming about what food you're going to eat and in what order. The answer to that question for me today was "all the food" and "at the same time."

I was so ravenous and delirious ("Ravelirious" is that a word?) with hunger that when the guy at the deli counter handed me my pizza box, I'm pretty sure he drew back a bloody stump.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that...

when I left the house this morning all kitted up, I locked eyes with my neighbor from across the road. He drives a Dodge Magnum wagon, wears a flat-brimmed baseball hat, and has a chin strap. I looked at him and thought: "What a douche." And I'm almost positive he looked over at me and thought: "What a fucking faggot." (It's OK, I'm speaking in character and my character happens to be a homophobic potty mouth.)

This reminded me of another such incident that occurred up in Andover the other day. I was riding at Harold Parker, I was on a road section between woods sections, and this knucklehead in a monster truck comes barreling down the road in the opposite direction. When he gets right next to me he stomps on the accelerator — BRAARR! He probably thought he was being awesome, but I thought he was being a douche. Of course he was looking at me like my neighbor surely was — as a leotard-wearing faggot, and he wanted to let me know that in his ever-so-subtle way.

Here's the thing, it is highly unlikely that someone could convince me that my Magnum-driving-neighbor or that head-injury-having monster truck driver are not grade-A douche bags, nor could someone likely convince them that I am not a leotard wearing faggot. In the defense of me being a leotard-wearing faggot they would just say: "Look dyude, he's wearing a leo-taahd...just gimme the faggit paaht OK?" And they would be half right. Dammit!

I'd like to think that when I returned from my ride at 3:30 this afternoon, eight hours after I'd seen my chin-strapped neighbor, and saw him sitting at the light in his " I have-no-penis-mobile," that he maybe, just maybe, thought for a split second that I was wicked hardcore for riding my bike for eight hours. (I was at school for a few of those hours, but it would have seemed to him like I'd been riding all day.) In reality there's no way he did though. He was almost definitely looking at me going: "Dyude, that quee-ah was out they-ah faggn' it up and leo-taahding around for a wicked long time...fuckin'."

Harold Parker. Where I go to "fag it up and leotard around."