his wheel.He was riding a couple of miles an hour slower than my pace, but with only a block to go before my next left turn, there was no point in passing. I settled in behind him and watched him catch a little air at curb cuts as he put a little twist on each jump.
After a short distance, he looked over his shoulder and saw me. Maybe it was the gray beard or my ugly face, but he clearly didn't want me hanging.
He accelerated like somebody had shoved a bottle rocket up his ass. And everyone who has been in such a situation knows what he did next.
Yeah. He started looking back to make sure he was dropping me.
"Sorry, kid," I thought to myself, "but I've only had a mile-and-a-half warm-up from my office, and I'm in a middle-ring mood. I'm lettin' you go."
Besides, Dimond Boulevard at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday is a lousy place for a testosterone-fueled bike race. I really don't need to get hip-checked in front of a Cadillac driven by some blue-hair who's struggling to see over the steering wheel while a psychotic Chihuaha bounces on her lap.
I don't know if I'm gettin' wiser, or just older. I looked at the guy's jeans, day pack and too-low saddle and figured all I'd have to do is wait for a block or two, then pull ahead as he gasped for air after his pointless sprint.
But that seemed like way more trouble that it was worth.
11 comments:
Ahhh...the over the shoulder look. It can be read different ways. I'm afraid to look back when I'm leading sometimes. The riders behind me might think that I'm getting tired...their cue to start sprinting on me. Sometimes I'm just curious if there's a car coming. Other times I know I have a good lead and there's no chance of anybody passing me. I don't want to appear smug by looking back. Like I said...it's complicated!
It's hard to resist the temptation of smoking some kid that thinks he's hot stuff!
Great Far Side cartoon. I'd not seen that one before.
"He accelerated like somebody had shoved a bottle rocket up his ass. And everyone who has been in such a situation knows what he did next."
Umm.. so when I read this paragraph, I though that the "such a situation" in the second sentence was talkiing about the simile in the first sentence. Needless to say it seemed like quite a leap to assume that the average reader of this blog would "know what he did next". But I guess you know what kind of readers you attract better than I do, so uh... Tim is there something you need to share?
Seriously, I enjoyed the post, you should have just kept up enough speed so that you didn't pass him but made him run himself into the ground.
Adam, I should have ask you to edit that post in advance. I made a last-minute change to that paragraph and didn't read it carefully enough.
Now I'm in a quandary. Do I nervously deny ever having a bottle rocket up my ass, even though doing so could make me appear to be ... well, like a bit of a tight-ass?
Or do I remain silent on the subject, leaving people to wonder if I spend weekends doing kinky things with small explosives?
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
By the way, there was this one time when I found a box of sparklers and two smoke bombs ...
Yeah it puts you in a tight spot. I mean there is really no better evidence of ass rocketry than a nervous denial of all things having to do with ass rockets.
I like the way it reads. It has a certain ambiguity and shock value to it. A certian "oh no I don't think that's what he means, or could he?", type thing. Sort of like walking away from a Georgia O'keefe painting... after thinking about it for a while you end up going "I guess it is just a flower, sort of ... but it could be a .....".
That's why I love reading blogs man, they, like people, work on multiple levels as a postmodern diary of the soul and sh!t, yah dig? ..... Oh my God, I just read this comment and I gotta get out more.
Postmodern diary of the soul? Wow.
I just like how a carelessly written paragraph can prompt an entire conversation about ass rockets.
If this kind of shit ever stops, I'm gonna delete the whole damn blog.
By the way, you said "tight spot."
Heh, heh, heh.
I did say tight spot, just for the very reason that you laughed hee hee...
Well, WWFD ?
What would Foley do ?
I woulda smoked that sucka like a bong...
Speaking of ass rockets...I had a mean case the other day
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ass+rocket
This was going around a while back...
The Butt Rocket video on YouTube.
Wow -- postmodern ass rockets? I knew what he would have done next. And he would have looking for grey hair in the back of my head. For after all -- we all know what you should have done next.
A testosterone fueled bike race is still better than admitting your wiser or older.
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