Biker Chick

If you’re planning a trip to Boulder, Colorado, you’ve certainly added “visit Chataqua park” to your itinerary. First of all, you could have streamlined that to say “Chataqua,” I’m not sure why you felt the need to make that a wordier task. Sorry, I will stop poking fun at your imaginary itinerary-planning skills (or lack thereof?).

Lately, Chataqua has become even more of a messy conglomeration of tourists than it was before. The main trails have been under construction LITERALLY forever (that’s not being dramatic at all), you now have to pay to park, and this morning I saw that they’ve added a photo booth. Sheesh. I go to Chataqua not for the hike; I go to free solo climb the second flatiron (to sum up “free solo”- it’s climbing without a harness or ropes). Honestly, the hike to get to the base of the slab is the pesky part.

 

Because of the whole “pay for parking” situation (yeah, as IF I would drop a dime on that!), I have started riding my bike to Chataqua. Actually, ever since my shoulder injury mentioned in the past few posts (catch up if you haven’t read them yet. I’ll wait, and even include a page break so that it seems as if I actually waited), I have been biking as a primary means of transportation.

That was the page break that I requested be included on your behalf. You’re welcome. Alright, so back to the meat of this post. Yum, meat, maybe it’s time for a burger break? Do you see why I have issues just sitting down and writing? Because of my increase in biking activity, I am trying to be an overall less awkward biker. Whenever someone passes me (which gives you an idea of how speedy I am), they usually shout out “passing on your left!” (or, passing on your right!), and my first reaction is to move to the side they announce, which thankfully hasn’t led to any collisions yet, and then I awkwardly feel the need to respond, so I yell “ok, sounds good!” which is completely unnecessary.

 

I’ve always found there to be “looks” that bikers exchange with other bikers, drivers, walkers, runners, etc. One of the looks is a look exchanged between bikers biking uphill and drivers passing them or driving downhill in the opposite direction. I used to give the sympathetic look to uphill bikers as a driver- like “aww, it really sucks that you are biking up that horrible hill, but I am sitting in my nice air-conditioned car and thus am unable to feel your pain, but I guess I am sorry you are in pain.” As bikers exchanging looks, it’s some serious empathy. Like, “yo fellow biker, I LITERALLY know EXACTLY how you feel; I just did that horrendous climb, but be motivated by the knowledge that soon, you will be flying downhill just as I am now.” The other is just the look of irritation that drivers give bikers and pedestrians, the one that says “how DARE you make me wait for another light cycle!” as they throw up their arms in indignation. Ironically, when that same driver is a pedestrian or biker, he or she is frustrated by drivers, thinking “how DARE you make me wait for another light cycle!” as they throw up their arms in indignation.

I decided to share the bike-related thoughts rattling around in my brain today, because it is Bike to Work day. I biked to work (because, once again, bike to work day!) basically one million miles (again, no drama here), and stopped at a few breakfast stations en route. I got a bunch of free bike gear from Nite Ize, who also gave me fruit and a Clif Bar, but they lacked coffee which I got later, ironically, at the tea factory Celestial Seasonings. Then I got to work drenched in sweat, which was fine because we are a bunch of fitness fanatics spending the majority of our time in workout garb. I don't have any kind of concluding thoughts for this blog so.... the end?