Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Positive Pedal Experience

Thank you, Mr. friendly Hispanic guy driving a red Ford truck, for being a nice neighbor.

Good start to the day.  I unclip at a stop light in the left hand turn lane when the guy in the red truck next to me rolls down his window. 
"Where've you been??"  
What is this guy talking about about, I ask in my head.  
"I haven't seen you for a while."
I swear I have never seen this guy before in my life.
"I always bump into along about Center street, but you haven't been there for a while."

Holy crap, this guy just admitted he missed seeing me riding my bike to work!!  He even called me out on not riding the past few days.  It's true.  Friday I drove (GASP!!!) because I didn't have any clean clothes at work and I wanted to take the woman out to lunch.  Yesterday (Monday) I still didn't have any clean clothes since I forgot to take them with me in my car on Friday.  Driving makes you forget stuff, I swear.  I took the bus on Monday, so that was nice and stress free.

So anyway, the experience with this nice guy who ended the conversation with, "You have a good one, buddy," was polar opposite to an instance a couple weeks ago.  That one involved a car laying on it's horn while waiting to pass me on Saddle creek.  I'm at a stop light when apparently, a bunch of cars pull up behind me in both lanes.  (On a side note, the lady in the left hand lane right next to me had her talk show music on louder than most boomin system hoopties!!)  So the light turns green and I get going.  The greyish Volkswagen Passat right behind me has to wait for all the left lane traffic to go by before he/she can get around me.  So he/she starts laying on his horn.  This goes on for half a block and I keep looking back like "What is your problem?"  The laying on the horn continues along with flashing of brights and emergency blinkers?!?  So this person apparently really needed to get past me (in the slower moving right hand lane) and had to let everyone else know around also.  Whatever.  Don't pull up behind a cyclist at a stoplight and expect them to jump off the road when you rudely demand them to.

Meh, such is the ups and downs of bike commuting.  At least Mr. friendly red truck guy has the decency to talk to me in person.  I should have looked for his license plate number and sent him a thank you letter.  I'm sure we'll bump into each other again.  Well, hopefully not literally.  

1 comment:

brady said...

I can almost picture you riding along with a big grin and a signature Munson head wag after that encounter with the red truck.