One Fast Fogey

Not So Zwift When I left the cozy confines of St. Petersburg, Florida, and moved to the frozen tundra of Chattanooga, I had an epiphany. Not the kind where Jesus descends in a shaft of heavenly light and shows you how to heal lepers. This epiphany came after several months of lying to myself—imagining that I could ride my bike throughout the winter and that the mountains weren’t really as high as everyone, including surveyors, cartographers, and the mountains themselves, claimed they were. As fall rolled into winter, and winter became increasingly belligerent and haughty, I began to understand why people didn’t ride their bicycles up there that time of year: Every one of them was smarter than I was and possessed a working knowledge of what dying from exposure meant. I lasted until the beginning of January before realizing there was a limit to how many layers of clothing I could wear and still mount a bicycle without the assistance of a crane. I also discovered that a balaclava restric...

THE HELL OF STRAVA Until the afternoon of June 25, 2020, I was blissfully unaware of the deep, black hole—the confidence-strangling, self-esteem-sucking abyss—known as Strava. A babe in the woods, one might say. Others might say I was a sixty-five-year-old life-support system for a shitty attitude and a sarcastic lifestyle, but to each his own diagnosis. On that day—a date that will live in infamy, or at least mild ignominy—I was talking to a stranger about running at Crescent Lake Park in St. Petersburg, Florida. In 20/20 hindsight, I should have been slightly suspicious. He was wearing a black fedora pulled low over his eyes, a black trench coat, and six watches on one wrist. He began the conversation with a hissing, “Pssssst. Hey, buddy. Got a minute?” I answered with my standard poodle-like, Everybody is honest and I’m perpetually happy persona. “Sure, dude. What’s up?” “Yeah, man,” he began, shifting his eyes back and forth as if someone might come screaming out of the bushes at...

SERENITY NOW!! For as long as I can remember, I’ve had problems with attention and focus. Of course, I didn’t have them in the socially acceptable, medically fashionable way—mostly because I’ve never been particularly accepted by society. My problem wasn’t that I couldn’t focus. My problem was that I focused WAY too much, and everything moving around me captured my attention for frighteningly long periods of time. When I was in my toddler phase—one I may not have entirely outgrown—I would fall into deep, contemplative trances. What a toddler could possibly have to contemplate that deeply is beyond me, but I had a habit of crawling around on the carpet with my forehead pressed against the floor while I thought. Apparently, the perpetual rug burn across my forehead concerned my mother and infuriated my father. I quickly learned that I shouldn’t grind my face into hamburger while mentally calculating the thrust vector required to launch a hot dog out of Earth’s orbit—or whatever the hell ...

    CALL THEM ISHMAEL.  Let me say this right off the bat, just in case any noncyclists—or the not-so-elusive active bike hater—happen to read this. I certainly don’t want to send anyone screaming into the night, frothing at the mouth and demanding the public execution of everyone who owns padded shorts: No one hates the cyclists in the picture above more than I do. Their attitude is arrogant, self-righteous, and—in my less-than-humble opinion—makes the rest of us look like entitled assholes who believe the Tour de France is coming through town and we’re all tied for the yellow jersey. In today’s society, it has become fashionable to demean, degrade, and abuse our fellow humans. Altruism—and especially sympathy—has been replaced by deep-seated apathy, open hostility, and the belief that anyone standing between us and the drive-thru window deserves to die. The unwarranted, hyperbolic hatred of cyclists has gotten dangerously out of control. Worse, it is frequ...