Bike Ride Day

Like I said yesterday, there was a big bike ride recently. It was Sunday, actually. Somehow I have managed to miss the big rides where they close down the streets and hordes of riders take over. I have been busy, not had a bike or felt too beat-up to handle the miles. Maybe it's not a string of coincidences. Maybe I have never really wanted to do it. I have a way of avoiding things when they are too popular for my liking.

In any event, it was this ride where everyone was going from downtown all the way out to the beach. That amounts to twenty miles. I think I have this right. Some friends did it, and I got their pictures. I heard their stories too. I do feel a bit sorry that I didn't get to participate, but I did get to indirectly experience the thing. You don't just ride your bike. You transport it across some distance via the trains, and I have done that.

When I am a rider, I identify with that group. If someone is displeased with me and my bike taking up the space that we do, then that's their concern. On the other hand, when I am a mere pedestrian and straphanger (as is the popular term, I believe), I feel the same antipathy that anyone who's not a rider feels about someone who is. On this particular day, there were many, many riders on the trains, and I was not one of them.

It was inconvenient, to say the least. I was heading out to South Pasadena for my evening plans, and every train station, every train car seemed to be filled with bikes. It wasn't all that bad on the subway, but it was worse on the more compact light rail. I got rather anxious, and I don't feel I'm generally given to claustrophobia. On this occasion, I was terribly relieved to be off the train and out of proximity to those bikes.