Saturday, February 5, 2011

"Cycling Upside Down Day" or "Ironic, Isn't It?"

I will be brief today and quite a bit less nerdy. Well...maybe only a little less nerdy. I was looking back over the previous two posts, one of which referred to me "geeking out." I feel the need to clarify. When I was referring to me geeking out, I was not using the term in the archaic, 18th century sense that  implies that I am a carnival freak. Rather, I was using the word with the contemporary definition in mind, that a geek is one who devotes himself to his particular hobby/activity/niche. What is disturbing about the word geek, though, is that when I looked up the word on Wikipedia it suggested that I also look op "technosexual..." a person, usually male, that has a thing for robots. Let me assure you...I do not have a thing for robots. My wife, Kalea and I are happily married. So I thought that maybe "nerd" would be a better word to use, so that people don't think of me as a technosexual, but "nerd" is no better. Wikipedia says that nerds are usually portrayed with very large glasses, braces, acne and "pants highly lifted up." I don't think I can win here. Too much ambiguity. I think I'll just stick with the contemporary use of the word "geek" and call it good.

Anyhow, as I was saying, I'll be brief today. I was visiting my friend Baily at Backporch. I had an espresso and then an 8oz. mocha while we discussed routes to get from Backporch to REI. I asked him if he'd ever ridden his bike under the Colorado Street bridge (I've mentioned it before...it may be a little dicey). He said he hadn't and that he probably wouldn't unless the river was low. I told him that the section riding next to the river was no problem and that I had never had any trouble riding my bike under there. I decided to take that route to REI after I finished my espresso. I got to the bridge, unclipped from my pedals as always to navigate the rocky entrance to the under-the-Colorado-Street-bridge-trail, passed all the way underneath the bridge in between the raging torrent of the Deschutes and the cold concrete wall of the bridge and clipped back in for the ascent of the other side of the Colorado Street bridge. This is where the story differs from usual. My tire entered a rut caused by rain and freeze, thaw cycles and all sorts of weather related drama, and I lost my balance leaning right toward some reeds that were at river level several feet down a bank. I tried to un-clip my foot to save myself from the looming catastrophe, but to no avail. Trying to pull my foot out of my pedal just exacerbated the imbalance of the situation and I committed to a half barrel-roll down the three foot bank with my bike still attached to all four of my limbs. So here I am on my back, with my bike still completely attached to me as if I were out for a lovely morning ride, laying in the reeds besides the powerful Deschutes thinking about the irony of the situation. If only I hadn't just finished telling Bailey about the ease of this passage, this would not be so humiliating. What would make the situation more humiliating would be a yoga studio full of half naked people watching the whole charade...oh, wait...there was a yoga studio full of half naked people watching the whole thing. Check. 

I managed to unclip from my inverted pony and release myself from the tangle of reeds and stumble back up the bank. I made a quick look around to make sure there was no one else (besides the yoga studio) watching, leapt upon my fixie and rode as if nothing had happened. Oh, I'm sure it will end up on YouTube very soon, but I don't mind, I guess. It's good for those things to happen every once in a while. Now that I think about it, that was kind of a geek thing to do.

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