Bike commutes represent just one of many ride options, but one that steadily recurs. You can instead form trains, go together in groups, recreate elsewhere alone, submit to fund raisers, take short neighborhood spins, or tour across country or state borders. Once you involve others, you limit number of trips. Commute routes need to start flat and short; otherwise you wouldn’t arrive on time. Returns can be lengthened to take in hills and scenery. As autumnal equinox passes, daylight at commute hours disappears. Shift from saving to standard time opens a short window to ride again without lights, though soon you must recharge them or replace batteries. You may attempt sunlit midday trips year round in most localities. Winter commutes tend to be entirely in darkness, which discourages all but the dauntless. Some attend indoor spin classes to deter later ineffectiveness.
Was once excited, ready and suited for a winter bicycle commute on a new route. Parked truck in a high traffic lot and rolled bike onto a quiet side street into cauldron pot blackness. Held headlight button for prescribed few seconds and lit as expected. After about a mile it popped. Walked back blind to where streetlights were and wended carefully back to vehicle to resume by motor. Among worst cycling disappointments ever, never got a chance to repeat that loop, which included a new bridge bike lane and rolling country terrain. Have been caught in rain and snow, laid low in hail and lightning, proceeded with caution in fog and on ice, but was never otherwise so utterly forced to retreat. Must always be wary of failure, especially by bike, since it might entail consequences you won’t like.
“Money talks, bullsh*t walks,” by which they mean people who can pay get treated royally while rest are derided ignominiously. Tempted to rephrase, "Wealth motors, poverty bikes," but bicycling spans all classes, and slogans, however false, seem less so if they rhyme, as if the extra effort of using fancy language legitimizes. No political speech writer or pulpit homily moralizer would ever be deprived of a rhyming dictionary. Apt phrases rattle inside addled brains, just a parlor trick that makes possible persuading the most apathetic without actual arm wrestling.
Life is mostly about getting, going, spending and sleeping. Leaves little chance to be brave. Choosing to go by bike only exposes you to different dangers than motoring. An automotive shell may seem like armor, but because of small footprint bicyclists avoid collisions altogether. Better never to collide.
All humans were born with a fear button. Politicians and pontificators specialize in pushing it to release fight or flight hormones. If you don’t respond, you’re left to assess doubts, misgivings, or regrets. Traced fork of failure back to a blur of pork on a spork. Yet middle aged flab once was a sign of affluent endurance not gross ugliness. Thereby survived stretches of lean and plenty without sheltering the blameworthy. A Labann cinquain, “Election Day”, exposes roots of evil times:
Bandits
brazen, sneaky
blood sucking politicians
murder more than mosquitos
poverty
Its meter resembles how some Congressmen bilked public of trillions, a bit at first, then bam bam, then bam bam bam, increasing from annually to quarterly until one incessant bang. Pettiness wants to deprive the powerless, steal a meal, stash as cash. Fear of future want compels such compulsion. Cinquain, an American Imagist poetic form based on Japanese haiku, is direct with an economy of words for short attention spans. Upon volumes of details taxpayers grew numb. Does anybody know who got away with treachery or remember who got indicted? While it disappoints and seems disrespectful, when nobody listens you can at least expect mobs won’t react wrongly. In Las Vegas, terrorists who do lash out heinously. Blame it on biased conservative media, who have already instigated next attack, always suborn treason, and arguably validate psychos. Aren’t all of these crimes?
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