Devon Dust Up Warmup

First, here's a style of bike I don't already have. Sweet!

It's been a few months since I've been putting in real "Bakke Miles", so despite racing this weekend I rode Friday night, Saturday on what turned to be a "fairly brisk" ride with Geoff Clark and Mike Mckee (and Pat Doyle eventually). My judgement told me not to ride as hard as they wanted to, so I just dropped off on hills and such. Nice day, finally the weather is respectable.

On the motorists vs. cyclists front, we actually had a 2 stopped car altercation on Lower Springbank. Mr. F250 buzzed us, so Mckee's finger went up. He stopped for to give us some words of encouragement from the car. As he passed us the second time speeding off, he came waay too close for my liking. I decided my full water bottle would make a nice sound off his door at the highest velocity I could muster. This time he stopped, got out, walked back really tough, then it dawned on him that the three of us didn't look so frail when he was on the outside of the 4 tons of steel. Some other yahoo who was in the oncoming lane stopped, reversed back to us, and joined the ruckus. He said he'd seen us "all over the road". Interesting since he was coming toward us and had just seen us over the rise of the hill. He was told to shut the fuck up in short order. Mr. F250 actually said "what do you guys expect me to do, slow down from 80 to 40?" I quickly opined that if his biggest problem in life is the inability to use 10 seconds of his Saturday morning for my safety and that of others we'd have a pretty big problem on our hands, pronto.

I'm sort of losing my patience with this kind of stuff. Cycling is an earth friendly, healthy, and inconspicuous hobby. Not like the motorheads out in Bragg with their Harleys and crotch rockets that you can hear for kilometers away when they decide the whole world needs to feel their acceleration. Cycling is benign. These all end with the vehicle driving off, and us riding away, hopefully with a full set of teeth and no blood. But I certainly can see it unfolding otherwise, this goofball couldn't understand one on one aggression in a fair setting, although his truck buzzes are the unfairest of one on one aggression.

Anyway, dropped by Bow later on to a) get my BB on the Strong replaced, seems like I've mashed the bearings already, and b) pick up a 4 bike hitch rack that supports by wheels rather than top tubes (ie. better carbon frame compatibility... especially since both my carbon frames are square tubed).

The train is leaving the station at 6am tomorrow for the drive to Devon, giddyup!