Fall Ride

I've been fortunate to have had a tailwind for my last couple of rides. Not that it really matters much but it is nice to feel like I'm going really fast for a change rather than fighting the wind; which I'd been doing a lot of this past month. The winds were from the southwest and gave me an added boost on my bike ride home this afternoon. The weather cooperated and was in the high 50's. It looked kind of cool from my ninth floor cubicle, so I overdressed. I was a bit hot initially but as it got darker I became more comfortable.

I was stopped at a red light on Chicago Avenue at South Boulevard in Evanston when a guy on one of those folding bikes joined me. I grunted a greeting but got nothing in return. No big deal. He crossed ahead of me and biked north at a pretty good clip considering he was riding on 10" wheels. I hung back for a while and eventually overtook him after a few blocks. Since he was pedaling a clown bike, I assumed he'd quickly fade. But as I crossed Main Street I realized he was still on my tail. I crossed Dempster and he was still there! What was it going to take to shake this guy on his little toy? There were two lanes of traffic backed up at a red light at Grove Street. Cars were crowding the curb so I juked between the two lines of cars. The light turned green just as I hit the intersection. That did the trick; he was nowhere to be seen. I was zooming along nicely except for a delay while waiting to turn left from Chicago onto Clark. As I approached Sherman, I saw him again. But now he was a half block ahead of me and pedaling at about 150 rpm on the sidewalk. He must have biked against one way traffic through downtown Evanston. Quite the ninja! I turned north toward home. God only knows what type of humiliation I would have suffered if he rode a real bike.

Distance Traveled: 24.3 miles
Distance to date: 977.6 miles
Price of gas: $2.49