...you asked.

If you ride you know those moments when you have fed yourself into the traffic, felt the hashed-up asphalt rattle in the handlebars, held a lungful of air in a cloud of exhaust. Up ahead there are two parallel buses. With cat's whiskers, you measure the clearance down a doubtful alley. You swing wide, outflank that flower truck. The cross-street yellow light is turning red. You burst off the green like a surfer on a wave of metal. You have a hundred empty yards of Broadway to yourself. ~Chip Brown, "A Bike and a Prayer"

People are always curious about my bike-life and I am constantly getting all kinds of questions ranging from: Aren't you scared of getting hit? to When are you going to buy a car, anyway?... but the question that I get most often is most definitely: So, how is biking going? The thing I love about this question is that my answer varies from day to day and definitely from person to person. I mean, that's a big reason I have a blog. So, if I am totally honest with you...I would say that the majority of the time it is going good, but there are definitely days when I get frustrated, tired, or just plain sick of biking. The good days are when the weather is nice, I have plenty of time to get where I need to be, and the traffic is cooperative. The not so good days are the ones that often end up being the most entertaining, where I actually wonder if someone, somewhere, is looking down at me and laughing. Two of my most recent "moments" are described below.

Ahhh. Winter. It is definitely not my favorite time of year. If it didn't involve good food, family, egg-nog and ugly sweater parties I probably would hate it all together. The cold makes me bitter, unmotivated, and physically sick... which is why I live in Charleston, home of the 1oo degree 100 percent humidity summer (BRING IT ON). I'd rather roof a house in the dead heat of August than walk to my bathroom in December (did I mention that we don't use central heat in my house?). So... now that I have established my dislike of cold weather... consider the fact that I am hopping on a bike and riding 5-10 miles a day, completely exposed to the elements. I have struggled with how to deal with this "situation" and the best I can come up with is wearing boatloads of layers, jeans and ear warmers. Yet somehow, this still doesn't make my bike trip home at 8pm after class anymore appealing... especially when my throat is raw from the ride in (I am still waiting for my face warmer thing to come in). Ironically, the worst part about it is the sweating. When you are wearing every shirt you own and happen to be running late, I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that you warm up reeeaaaalllly fast. There is nothing like coming into a meeting with important people and having to distractingly peel off layers like an onion and fan yourself with the agenda while your neighbor leans away to avoid your "I just worked out" perfume. I know my face is bright red and that I have an amazingly awkward helmet dent in my forehead, thank-you-very-much. My favorite is having to make a serious argument for something while a bead of sweat drips slowly down your back and heads straight for your crack.... oh...if they only knew. And after all of that, you cool off just in time to get back on your bike, your sweat-soaked clothes clinging icily to your body while you long to be as overheated as you were twenty minutes ago.

My second most recent interesting experience involved a mistake that you just have to make for yourself to truly appreciate. I have to start off by telling you that I am partially blind. I have to wear contacts or glasses because otherwise everything is a blur (I mean this is the fuzziest way possible). Because I can't afford to break my glasses and I need to be able to wear my sweet shades, I always sport my contacts when biking. Now I have always been the girl scout type that is always prepared, but for some reason (i.e. two many jobs and not enough time) I have been flaking out lately on the details of life. One of these seemingly unimportant details was always carrying my contact case, extra fluid, and glasses with me when wearing contacts. So I was making my way over the bridge, with the ice cold wind blowing in my face when a kamikaze bug ended his life directly into my eyeball. I tried to stay cool and fish him out without stopping but it soon became apparent that he was not going down without a fight. Next thing I know, I am huddling behind the middle of the bridge trying to get this little dude from inside my eyelid. Somewhere in this process, my contact decides to go bridge jumping and flies off my face, plunging into the current below. My exact thought: "Shit. That's not good." Since I am coming straight from work and heading to class, there is no time for me to turn around and I have to keep going, contact or not. Is there anything more sad that a one eyed biker? Okay, well, clearly there is, but at that point, I was feeling pretty pathetic. For the second time in my life I desperately wanted an eye patch (remind me to tell you about the other one later). But instead I had to bike to class with one eye shut like an idiot. By the time I got there I had kind of gotten used to the nausea and just dealt with it but the bike ride home was brutal. I had no depth perception (I was curb checking like no-ones business) and I actually had to pull over to dry heave because my body could not understand what the hell was going on. I am pretty sure people thought I was biking home while ridiculously drunk. Thinking back, it probably would have make the ride home a little more enjoyable...but lets just say I have never been so happy to put on my old scratched pair of glasses.

Well, like I said, most of the time I make it there and back with no problems and really enjoy myself... but every few trips all hell breaks loose and I have to laugh at myself. So, now you know "how it is going" at this point :-)