Little Wimpy

I usually don’t let the weather stop me from biking, and I didn’t this morning when taking the bike ride of shame in a steady spring shower to pick up the car from where we’d left it last night, but when it came to heading out around noon in a drenching downpour to participate in today’s cargo bike ride, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Later in the afternoon, after it turned windy and clearer, I rode to Gasworks Park to raise a toast in honor of the 20 or so folks who had done the ride, proving themselves, at least for now, much hardier than me. I felt sort wimpy as I stood around, mostly all dry while people’s gloves and socks dried steamily on the open fire.

So I only hung out for a while before heading back home and what was funny and ironic and probably able to be interpreted as some kind of instant karma was that, just as I was about to ride from the entrance of Gasworks onto the street, an SUV passed in front of me, raising a huge sheet of water as it splashed through a puddle, soaking my pants and jacket with grape-sized drops of wet.

But, I dried fairly quickly in the gusty wind, so gusty, in fact, as I rode through a skyscraper canyon downtown near Westlake and Virginia, that I was blown sideways all the way from the curb to the centerline, which was funny so long as there were no cars coming.

Somehow, though, even after I turned up Pine Street, the winds never seemed to be at my back; I was sort of expecting to sail up the hill with a gale force behind me, but it didn’t work out that way; I still had to mash and spin all the way up to the top, enjoying the fine spring day, but breathing rather hard, after all, still a little wimpy.