It's hard to believe the weekend went so fast. Usually by Sunday I'm tired of biking and ready to go home, but I really could have ridden some more today. Only the thought of how much I needed to do to prepare for going out of town again tomorrow made me cut it short and come on home.
Rozmo and I created our own route for the early part of the day. We wanted to go by the famous Oreo cow farm, but that was only on the 57-mile route. And even Rozmo didn't want to do the 57. So we rode out on our own to the farm, had a bloody mary and one Oreo (my only cookie of the entire weekend, thank you very much), and then we followed the 57-mile route to the end. Our ride was 36 miles, and it was the perfect length. It was still cool this morning but not quite as windy as it has been.
The only downer on the whole ride was the scariest experience I have EVER had on a bike in my 20 years of cycling. We had just left a state park and were going up a pretty tough hill. I saw a truck approaching, and I could hear a vehicle of some kind behind me. I could tell it wasn't slowing down enough, and I was hoping it would get over far enough.
Only when it was right beside me did I realize it was one of those huge RV's. And then something touched my left shoulder. I think it was the mirror of the RV.
I screamed a profanity questioning the driver's maternal parent, and I flipped him off violently. I'm ashamed of that; it's something I NEVER do on the bike. I guess instincts just took over.
I was going to pull off on the side of the road, but Rozmo was ahead of me and I didn't want her to have to come back down the hill and then struggle up it again. She stopped at the top of the hill anyway to get her breath, and I was just about to collapse with anger/fear/relief when I got to her. I was nearly crying, and I was trembling.
I can't be 100% certain that the RV brushed me, because it didn't knock me over, it didn't make me run off the road, it didn't even make me wobble. But SOMETHING brushed my shoulder. I definitely felt something touch me.
The adrenaline rush helped me get up the hill, but that's not exactly the way I'd like to get more power.
I'm thankful for my guardian angel today. I hope she isn't going to resign in disgust after this experience.
1 comment:
I'm glad to hear that you survived the near miss. It's getting to the point that it takes more courage to ride a bicycle on the road than it does to ride a motorcycle! Most times, four wheelers act as though they own the road and they never learned how to share! Who knows, with the escalating gas prices, there may be a more bicycles than cars on the road this summer.
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