Beer Can

Possibly an intoxicated motorist, with cohorts, threw a beer can at me as they ran me off the road last night. It was on the commute home—things happened fast—a mostly full can of beer sloshed over my shoulder. The black body of the automobile squeezed me out of the bike lane. I went into gravel and rocks beyond the pavement. I stayed on the bike but my front tire blew out and I got a hard jolt out of the bumpy ride over the rocks. It was getting dark, but I could still see a little—the car, which I couldn’t make out, was a few blocks from the traffic light at Ina and La Canada. The light changed red and they had to stop and wait. If my tire would not have been flat, I would have certainly caught up to them, got the plates, and called the police.

They were too far away for me to read the plate or make out what kind of car. Soon other cars moved in to fill the space at the light, and then it changed green.

I struggled to get the tire off the wheel, and then back on the bent rim. And I had a difficult time getting the tube to hold air—maybe I had a bad tube? Could have been. So I pumped up the tire, rode until it went flat, then pumped up the tire again—this I did for a mile until my tire pump broke—just like the night before.

I was in a fix because Little Egypt was not feeling well and I had driven the car to the YMCA then rode to work—that way she wouldn’t have t pick me up. My only choice was to walk the three miles to the Y parking lot.

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For something different, I rode the same way back as I did riding in. It’s a bit more dangerous because of Ina and Oracle Rds—and it was a bit tricky when I reached that point—more on that in a moment.

Since most of my ride to work is climbing, when I reached the top of Swan and Sunrise—the very top of my climb and then a fast descent into work—now the way home would be fast, and it was very fast, Gentle Readers of This Blog!

Ina and Oracle intersection was packed and cars were backed up into the bike lane for a half mile. I rode precariously between the jammed cars in the bike lane and the jammed cars in the left lane—and in no time I was at the light in the safe zone of the bike lane. That was not a very safe thing to do and maybe that’s where the hater stuck in traffic saw me and got irate. He probably sucked down another beer to get up the courage to confront me on down the road—the fucker.

I believed that I would be okay riding this way home because it is the El Tour de Tucson course, and there have been so many cyclists out that one more—me—wouldn’t bother anyone. Little Egypt says for me to stick with my regular route, and our planned pick-up point.

Cheers