V-I Day

Some may view the meticulous cleaning of my apartment this morning as an attempt to put off the inaugural bike ride. Really, though, I wanted to be sure that should I end up in a full body cast this afternoon, I would at least be brought back to a clean place. And I'm having a dinner party tonight. And... okay, maybe a little bit of stalling. But after scouring the kitchen counters, warming up some breakfast (a tamale isn't a bad last meal), a little review of the Sheldon Brown website (starting and stopping... right), and some parting words of advice from my upstairs neighbor David ("Don't think too much"), I strapped on my helmet and headed out.

Initially my plan was to check out part of the Rock Creek trail system. But first I thought it wise to have someone look over things to be sure I wasn't riding on a horribly misaligned bicycle. I mean, if I'm going to crash into something, it should be because I lean too far in on a turn or somebody jumps out of nowhere, not because, say, the rear brakes don't work. Thus it came to pass that my first outdoor bike ride was to City Bikes in Adams Morgan where the mechanic did, in fact, realign the rear brake pads (whew!). I considered continuing on to Rock Creek, but then recalled how many of my favorite Greek tragedies involve heroes who tempt the gods. Hubris would not be my downfall when it came to bicycles. I was homeward bound....

I made it back safely to my sparkling clean apartment, taking the street this time instead of the sidewalk and managing to make it back with a total of zero broken bones. People even smiled back at me this time, contrary to the nervous shuffling out of the way I encountered on the ride over. I think it's time for a toast. And in honor of the man I consider the patron saint of velocipedes, I have decided to name my bike-on-loan Sheldon.