So I'm dumb

Yesterday, I was overdue for a bike ride and really wanted some Scoop in Fairfax--20 miles up and 20 miles back. I got a double, that I couldn't finish, but yum--super creamy cookie dough and mint chip. Then I checked the bike, climbed back into the saddle and rode for a couple blocks. Hmm...something's wrong with the back tire. Oh, yeah the tire that had a bit of a hole that I patched over--the OUTSIDE. The patches are really for the tube that goes inside the tire. But, me-brilliant, poor and brilliant. Priscilla really needs a tune-up and tire care. I've had her for a year and ridden over 2000 miles in that time.

There I was in San Anselmo, listening to the hissing tire and trying to patch it over, because, did I mention? I'm dumb, or more acurately I was being dumb. And somehow cut my finger, so it was bleeding everywhere and getting blood and grease mixed-awesome! So I pumped some air in until it was full and decided to keep stopping and filling--because: me+bike=dumb. About a mile later, I pulled over and decided to actually change the tube, since that was part of the problem. Did this part go smoothly? Nope! I was trying to get the tube out and having a really hard time, before I realized the tire needed to be taken OFF the bike to change it. And I was fumbling my way through and trying not to get everything gross. Then I realized I had water, which could wash my cut out.

Finally I was back on the road. Along the bike route in Marin, which is a well-used route, there is a section that looks like a bike lane, but is really a shoulder--how do you know? Oh the giant cars that are parked in such a way that you can get stuck between them and the moving traffic. So I'm biking along and get honked at--People! I beg of you not to honk unless your life or the cyclist's life is in peril. Horns are loud for cars, but cars have metal and glass to deaden the noise. We cyclists, we have no protective metal, glass, and are on two very narrow tires. There's not a lot between us and the noise and us and the road. It may be difficult for drivers to see what we see, (and yes there are some cyclists that give us a bad name) but we're not out to get you drivers. Oh, so this loud horn honks at me--a couple in their 60's in their giant, expensive, gas-guzzling SUV, because I'm a biker, riding outside the shoulder. They open their window at the next light and yell at me about the bike lane as I try to explain that it's a shoulder. A SHOULDER--with cars parked all along the way. There's a whole thing about predictable riding that people don't sense. But I said a prayer for those b's anyway.

So it was forty miles in 4 hours, including the ice cream stop, the tire issues, road closures, and my lack of a brain.