rant about stupid-isms

Stupid-ism #1: A few weeks ago MFTLP and I were doing a LONG ride. We were about at the turn-around point on a state road that had been 2 lanes for quite a long way but had turned into a 4-lane road with a center turn lane. Plenty of room. This chic in the passenger seat of a white SUV leaned out as she was passing us and said something along the lines of "why don't you ride on the sidewalk?" with an angry tone and possibly an obscenity attached.

Um...well #1, a**hole: it's not legal to ride on the sidewalks where I live and it is legal (as in required) to ride on the right side of the road - "ride as far to the right as practicable" which still means riding on the right side of the what? - the ROAD. And, #2, stupid a**hole (this is where the stupid comes in): THERE WEREN'T ANY SIDEWALKS. Yes, that's right she yelled at me to ride on the sidewalks and there weren't any. You'd think because she was so blatantly stupid that it wouldn't bother me. But, alas, I am affected - frustrated by the fact that nothing I did impacted her - she was driving in the left lane with nobody slowing her down - and yet she had to yell something angry out the window to us. WTF!

Stupid-ism #2: Today, during the bike part of our brick, I had a flat. [I guess I didn't have to specify that it was the bike part of the brick in which I had a flat - if I'm going to have a flat, I would have it during the bike. Duh. Sorry.] So, having a flat today is pretty frustrating - I mean it's always frustrating to have a flat but today it was made even more frustrating because I just changed my tire like 2 or 3 days ago because it was flat AND (this is good) I HAVEN'T FUCKING RIDDEN MY BIKE SINCE I CHANGED MY FUCKING TIRE and it still went flat! Besides having to deal with a flat during terrible traffic time (cars zooming past at like 40-50 mph or more like 3-4 feet away from me) and dealing with the fact that there is something wrong with me and how I change my tires or something wrong with my tire (either one of which REALLY needs to be fixed before the race), some fuckhead yells out his car window "(something something that was garbled) bicycle fags". I suppose it might have been "bicycle hags" or possibly "bicycle bags" but people don't usually go out of their way to yell something like bicycle bags. They are much more likely to yell something which is intended to be some kind of insult I suppose. What exactly are "bicycle fags" or "bicycle hags" for that matter? And, does changing a tire on the side of a busy road during almost-rush-hour constitute us being "bicycle fags". I mean it's not like we were making out or anything (although I have to say that would have been far more fun than changing the FUCKING tire for the second time in 3 days). Or, what if it was "bicycle hags"? What's that? He was also traveling the opposite direction on the other side of the divided highway from where we were. So, nothing we were doing was impacting him at all. And yet, stupid a**hole had to yell out his window at us. WTF!

Anyway...there is so much anger out there about bicyclists riding on the roads. Why? What the hell did we do to you? You are probably the same a**holes that throw shit out the windows of your cars rather than in a trash can and chain up your dogs outside without water and don't give a shit about what happens to them and you are also probably the kind of ignorant motherfuckers who go out of their way to kill, torture or maim other creatures. Definitely the kind of people that need to be weeded out some variation of the darwinian way - like survival of the smartest - of which they would totally NOT make the cut.

Sorry, fuck is the word of choice today. I hope none of you younger folks are reading this. If so, edit out the bad words.

Today: the traffic got to me. It didn't used to - but it sure did today.

We have 16 days 'til the race. It seems very close. We have about 10 more days of pretty intensive training and then taper. My confidence is increasing in little bits and my excitement is growing. Yay!

Later dudes. Thanks for reading.