Observations of a bike rider

1. Downhill is less fun than when you were 12. Uphill still sucks.

2. Thanks to global climate change, if one pokes one's thumbs through one's coveralls and breathes through one's mouth like Farmer Bob Hill while riding one's bike, one might possibly find one's mouth full of insects, even in March.

3. Drivers aren't the assholes I expected them to be. With the very rare exception of a few cell-phone-talking, gotta-get-to-work-and-start-screwing-people dickheads, most drivers have been courteous.

4. Unless your ass is in the top 1/100 of 1 % of comeliness, it probably doesn’t look good in bicycle shorts. Bicycle shorts have to be the most unflattering garment since the low-rise trouser met the obesity epidemic.

5. Worst moments so far: 1) Almost getting killed at the Douglass Loop shifting into 4 instead of the intended 6; 2) Almost getting a face full of loogie hocked from a Highland Middle student (he didn't see me coming); 3) see item 4 above.

6. Best moments so far: 1) tooling swiftly through a rush-hour traffic jam in Seneca Park, leaving a long line of SUVs in my dust; 2) Not dying in the Douglass Loop mishap; 3. The 1/100 of the 1 %.

7. It is surprisingly fast. It takes only about 10 minutes more than my Jetta commute.

8. As a nation of commuters, we haven't even begun to conserve. It's rare to pass a car, truck or SUV with more than one person inside. Wouldn't just the teensiest effort make a huge impact in reducing pollution, global warming, oil dependency, and those irritating little wars? Socialism be damned, wouldn't this be cool here?

[Apologies to Bob Hill. I love his columns, both Metro and Gardening, and also his radio show. But that photo. Oy.]