This morning I contemplated for a long time about getting on my bike. Whether it was laziness or just a lingering desire to drive my new car, I don’t know. I reasoned with myself, with the angel and devil sitting on my shoulders, about the pros and cons of putting on all my gear and spinning to work. The weather will be nice. Yeah, but you have no clean jerseys. It’s in your training plan to ride. Yeah, but it’s cold and dark. Eventually, the angel won out and I was hobbling out the door in my bike shoes about 15 minutes late.
Once I was out of the apartment, I knew I made the right decision. Once I get on the bike and ride, feeling the wind and the tingle of lactic acid, I never regret the decision to ride to work. It’s just those pesky few minutes before I put on the bibs that kill my drive to train or be outside that are hard. Today I’ll do some sprint intervals and just chill the rest of the time.
I thought a lot about how I was missing the open roads of Leakey that I had this weekend, where cars will pass you with a whole lane. I was thinking about how much the roads in Houston suck, and why the Houston City Government thinks it’s a good idea to use tsunami style floods on their grassy medians, which actually ends up watering the street and causing potholes. (I have a theory this is why most potholes in Houston are created) I was actually having a great morning though!
I got to a section of road that is extremely messed up, which always has 6 inches of water covering the bike lane, even when it hasn’t rained in 3 weeks. To avoid this, I move to the left of the bike lane, into the right-most car lane in a two-lane street. Even though this makes drivers FURIOUS that they are inconvenienced by the 20 seconds that it takes to go around, I knew it was necessary to avoid unforeseen obstacles in the man-made bayou in the middle of the road.
As I did this, a man driving a Ford Explorer zooms around me with his gas pedal undoubtedly slammed to the floorboard, coming within mere inches of my left shoulder. I have never had a car come that close to me at such a high speed. I did not even have time to react. 100 yards up the road, he was stopped by a stop light, and I pulled up behind him. He might have got there 30 second faster. I might be over-dramatic, but at the time it felt like he valued 30 seconds of his time over my life.
I was furious. I wanted to flick him off, slit his tires, ding his door panel. I wanted to throw a rock at his face. Who did he think he is, driving around in a 1999 Ford Exploder, almost hitting cyclists with his side mirror. He was representing drivers very badly. Most cyclists you talk to have similar stories. Instead of doing damage to his POS, I decided to take a deep breath, and respectfully talk to the guy who came within inches of hitting my head with his side mirror.
I motioned for him to roll down his window, and as he did I calmly said, “Excuse me sir, but you came really close to hitting me a minute ago to get in front of me. I was taking up the whole lane because there was water and obstacles in the bike lane, and can do that if I choose, by law. I would appreciate it if you would give me more room and not buzz by me as you could hit and kill me easily.” He replied, ” I’d appreciate it if you’d F%*K OFF.”
By this time, the light had turned green and he floored it again. I chuckled to myself and kept riding. I found it amusing that a person could be this angry about absolutely nothing. I should be the one cursing, because I was the one that was wronged, right? As luck would have it, we ended up at the next stop light together again. I pulled up beside him, not looking at him, but definitely making my presence known.
After a minute or so, he rolls down his window again. As he rolls it down I know I am about to be the victim of another barrage of cuss words or insult about my love of cycling. Instead, the opposite happens. ” Hey, man, um I’m really sorry about back there. I was just angry for no reason and shouldn’t have buzzed you or yelled at you. Sorry for being an ass. ” I looked at him blankly. This guy had a change of heart I guess, or has the worst case of bipolar disorder.
“No problem, just give cyclists more room next time.” He promised he would.
I’m glad I handled the situation the way I did. That’s one less person driving a car trying to almost kill a cyclist. I hope more cyclists do the same.
