Points

An artefact of the fantasy bike commuting system is it has encouraged my macho side to ride in the coldest, wettest, ickiest weather for the love of bonus points. Thursday evening it rained, nothing unusual so far, but a cold front moved in during the night. My normally accurate forecasting buddy, the weather brick, was covered with a layer of frost. Cold’s no big deal. Once I get down the hill, I reach a temperature equilibrium.

I’m going downhill, starting to notice that the frost isn’t really frost, but black ice. I should have stopped there and walked back, but since the weather off the hill is always much better, I continued on. The light onto the main boulevard turned green and I follwed a queue of cars turning left when blammo, my bike skates out from under me. The first thing I could think of was “get out of the way,” as it’s likely there are cars behind me. I almost fall two more times dancing across the icy mass of road.

As I walk home, I hear the metal-on-metal sound of something bent rubbing against something that should not be rubbed against. When I get home, I almost slide down my driveway and see a sheet of ice on my windshield. (What the hell was I thinking?) I go upstairs to change into civilian clothes, casually mentioning to my semi-conscious spouse (waking up) that I only got an 8.8 for my acrobatics. The big welt on my left posterior adds insult to this being my birthday. When I get to work, the first thing the director of operations says to me is “you wouldn’t believe the crazy cyclist we saw out today.”

Oh, but I do. I bet she’s on a points system.