Another Pleasant Valley (aka: East Side) road ride

The air was cool, the sun was shining and I should've known better than to just ride loops on the East Side yesterday. I had the time for a longer ride out to Rehobeth but I opted to stay close to home. All the while conveniently forgetting the way nice weather lures those not prone to movement out of doors, much in the same way Craigslist attracts illiterate fucks selling over priced POS bikes they pulled from the rafters. The flat tire that greeted me when I went to grab my bike should've been a clear omen. The only way to correctly interpret such an signal is to utilize the tools at hand, namely beer, your couch and reruns of Seinfeld. After much reflection all is usually revealed. Instead of doing the smart thing I replaced the tube and hit the road, neglecting to notice that my stem was pointing to the right at roughly a 10 degree angle. Well, that explains the weird left hand turns anyway.

That issue addressed I headed over toward the nice part of town. The trip over was fairly uneventful, and the weather was just too damn nice to second guess my planned ride. As boring as loops of Blackstone Blvd. and the adjoining streets can be the area offers a convenient place to ride close to home, and it's a decent spot for some structured work like intervals and self TT riding. Not that it makes me any faster, but I like to at least humor myself.

Things were going swell, wonderfully in fact, until Johnny Law almost got me run over by a guy who looked like a fat Juan Epstein from Welcome Back Cotter. This all came about because a cop attempted to pull Epstein over on the Boulevard with little to no warning to all involved. He blazed up real fast, so fast it seemed like he was on a mission from God and there was a slim chance the smoking 20 year old shitbox might elude him. He then gave one quick BOOOOP of the siren for good measure. This action caused Epstein to shoot across the road from the left shoulder to the right in one decidely ungraceful display of driving. It was not unlike watching a crackhead spastically dart his way up Pleasant Street, peeking his head in trash bins hoping to score some discarded treasures.

This stunningly awkward action caused the car in front of, and to the left of me, to jack on the brakes. This caused me to stop humming Last Train to Clarksville and go all bug eyed as I nearly shit myself. Options were limited, and it really sucked, but I was quick enough on the front brake and got around everything in time to yell at Epstein. While I spewed a few swear words of my own concoction I noticed he was looking at me and laughing. I found this amusing coming from a crooked Afro sporting dude in a beat to shit Mazda MPV clad in a ratty T-shirt, with glorious stains of an unknown origin, and his equally attractive passenger. I'm guessing here, but I think his time with the fuzz on the East Side was less than enjoyable as he was held there for the next 30 minutes. One would imagine it's not exactly the neighborhood to be pulled over in when you look broke, and you don't fit the description of the majority of the residents.

Anyway I kept on cruising figuring my luck had to turn around at some point. That point apparently was to be a bit later on in the night as I had a few stop sign running fools almost take me out on the ride home. Loads of fun, I won't even get into the idiots roller blading with traffic in the bike lane wearing next to no clothing and, of course, headphones. Sorry if I scared the crap out of you when I passed so closely. I couldn't resist, and besides I didn't feel like cutting in front of traffic to accommodate your pasty ass as it weaves across the whole lane. Put some goddamn pants on next time, OK?