One of the things I miss about my current job is that I can’t bike it to work.

Not that’s too far – the distance would be a nice challenge, and there are some park ‘n rides halfway there for days when I don’t want a challenge.

But there’s no place to take a shower at the office, or anywhere near it – the only gym close enough to even think about is still 3-4 miles away and, worse, would involve a pretty challenging route to get from the gym to the office, which means I’d need another shower when I got there.

Anyway, apropos not much, Joe Doakes of Como Park writes:

Driving downtown St. Paul this morning, it occurred to me there was one nice thing about the rain – it would keep the bicycle riders away. No sooner had the thought entered my head than a bicycle rider appeared.

It’s 7:15 a.m. It’s raining. It’s gloomy. I’m on Wabasha Street at 7th – smack downtown in rush hour traffic. This simple soul rides off the curb into traffic on a black mountain bike wearing a black helmet, black jacket, black pants and black shoes. Then he “splits” traffic riding up the dotted lines between cars stopped for a red light before sticking his black-clad arm out and swerving left in front of a truck to turn onto 5th, causing an accordion of nose-dives and brake lights cascading back toward the Capital.

He had a grubby yellow saddlebag slung on the portside of his rack and one tiny red light on his saddle, blinking like a firefly possessed by a demon; that’s it, that’s his safety system. Everybody else was supposed to be watching out for him between the sea of taillights, the drops on the windshield, the smear left by the wipers.

What.

An.

Idiot.

Smear – that’s about what I expected when he cut off that delivery van. I honestly think I would have stopped to get out and spit on him.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

That’s the problem with those Critical Mass riders; they try to do their same schtick when they are not a critical mass…