Heavy Things

"Things kee falling down on me; heavy things that I can't see… when I tried to step aside, I moved just where they hoped I'd be."

Heavy things can take many forms. If you're me, the heavy things could be an upset stomach or a Honda Civic. If you're my scale, the heavy thing is me. After yesterday, I'm taking it a little easier on the scale, tipping in a just a few strands of hair over 200 lbs. (My wife likes to keep the scales on pounds, rather than going metric.) That's pretty good for me, considering that I started this biking season at around 210 lbs.

Anyway, I think the heavy things for me are going to be more interesting that the heavy thing for my scale. Wednesday  evening my family finished up the day by going with some friends to Rile's for a milk shake. My banana-hot fudge shake was delicious. It was just the fact that it was 1500 - 2000 calories of fat, right before bedtime that had me worried. And worried I was for good reason. As I scooped out the last couple bites of the cup full of deliciousness, I thought, "Oops." Well, Thursday morning I woke up with a tender tummy and didn't want to really eat anything until THursday night. There was one challenge with this not eating: I had to bike to work. Yup, no car at home. So I took an easy, short commute to the office and went through the day on a pice of bread and some a pudding cup. Now, I was glad to see that this helped drop my weight to within 20 pounds of where I want to be, but it was a hard way to do it. Heavy thing falling down on me.

Then this morning I was at the top of Winchester at 1300 West when a, dare I say it -- yes, stupid Civic driver decided that he could get the left turn in front of the bike coming straight at him. Fortunately for me I was planning on turning at that intersection anyway so he didn't smack me broadside. Well, I discovered that I can get -- and effectively act upon -- road rage on a bike. I was seriously ticked at this idiot. So, I shifted all the way up and sprinted down the 10% grade. I was finally able to catch up to him and thought about slapping his trunk, but then realized that there was a gap between him and the car ahead of him, so I kept sprinting and put myself squarely in the middle of the lane, directly in front of him, repaying the courtesy of cutting me off by cutting him off. Eventually I did slide back to the right and watched him burn a half gallon of gas speeding up ahead of the bike as he raced to the next red light. Just after this I thought back to the stories recently of card pulling in front of packs of bikes and slamming on their brakes. At least I didn't slam my brakes. Anyway, that's one heavy thing I'd rather not see on the road again.