Rage

I’ve done a few ragin’ rides and been the target of some classic Holidaze Road Rage.

Tuesday I found myself with the opportunity to ride out of Catalina State Park. First I rode to the wilderness boundary on the Romero Trail. There were a few rock moves that I couldn’t clean going up, and one I didn’t dare ride down. All good fun and trail I’ve never actually ridden before. Sutherland trail is pretty sandy, and bridle trail even more so. I followed a few random horse trails in hopes of finding something good (i.e. rocky and technical) but nothing really panned out. I ended up abandoning the quickly deteriorating trail and returning to bridle trail via a sandy wash.

When I hopped on 50 year trail proper I decided to climb up the old race course descent that has been recently reopened. There are a few really nice spots on that trail. When that brought me back to the 50, I headed back down the descent, trying to get air wherever I could. I rode the Behemoth which seemed to be floating really well through all the sand. Probably didn’t hurt that my rear tire was constantly leaking. I’d let it sit at 10 psi as I continued to crank out sand.

Wednesday Jon and I headed out to rip around Tucson Mountain Park. We just did the standard loop, but it was incredibly fun. The experience of riding “fast” still feels so new to me. It’s refreshing and invigorating. Even better is not feeling tired and rundown afterwards. Now that’s refreshing.

And the Leviathan is the perfect bike for rocketing around TMP. Mike asked me if I thought it handled slow. Quite the opposite.

We returned to Tucson via the Santa Cruz river path. I don’t know what’s going on, but a concrete drainage that I used to ride down (featuring several jumps) is now fenced off. So I turned off the dirt path to slide down a dirt embankment back onto the river trail. I either couldn’t or didn’t see the ditch running across it midway down. I rode down this embankment last week without blinking an eye. This time I went OTB. “You were laughing before you hit the ground.” Yep, I couldn’t stop laughing about it, even a half hour later as I was almost getting home. Crashes that are stupid and don’t hurt are funny. The dirt was loose, and all of my skin was covered, so there was no damage. Except… I seem to have pulled or torn a muscle in my calf on the landing.

Jon suggested we ride through downtown, since it’s shorter for him. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to downtown Tucson. One was to buy our house, another for the start of El Tour. That’s about it.

We were riding east on Broadway, a one way ~3 lane road. We’re turning left so Jon moves over to the left lane at the stoplight before our turn. As we’re pedaling on the left side of the road a white truck pulls beside us. The driver hangs his wallet out the window, apparently trying to show us some kind of badge. He yells for us to get on the right side of the road, interspersed with some insults.

I look behind my shoulder and see about twenty cars. It would be absolute suicide to go to the right side, cop or no cop telling us what to do. If the choices are ‘safe’ and ‘legal’, I’ll always choose safe, thankyouverymuch. He drives ahead and seeing that we didn’t move to the right side of the road (our turn was just ahead anyway), he stops his truck in the middle of the road, getting out mid-scream. He’s fumbling with his wallet again, yelling things at us. I said one word to him, “sorry” (as in, sorry our presence offended you).

He never identified himself as a police officer, and was absolutely not behaving as one. I saw no reason to stop. As we pedal around him he calls us ‘jerk offs.’ I still have no reason to believe he was a police officer. He was in a contractor-type truck with contractor stickers. It was probably his colgate cavity patrol badge.

It’s always good to be with someone else during an incident like that. We talked it over on the rest of the ride back, confirming that we did nothing wrong and obviously the guy was experiencing some holiday frustration and was looking for a confrontation. He was probably even more angry that he didn’t get what he wanted.

The next road rage incident was just hilarious. This time I wasn’t nearly as vulnerable since I was in a vehicle myself. I had planned to ride to my dental appointment this morning (it was part of my “training plan”), but it’s a 2 hour ride and with the hurt calf muscle, I decided driving was the best course of action. I’ll ride, but much shorter and easier.

So as I’m driving back, I’m driving ~42 in a 35 zone. A white lexus SUV comes screaming behind me and begins to tail-gate. I normally pull over to get out of a YADIAH (yet another driver in a hurry)’s way. But I could see this soccer mom type’s face and I could see that she was yelling and pounding her steering wheel. I just couldn’t believe it, and all I could think was “Merry Christmas.” I was about to pull over, but I just had to look again, for comedy value, but also to make sure it was real. At the time it just seemed so ridiculous. How could you get that worked up?

Ahh, the holidaze. Ahh, driving in your little car bubble. Of course I know why people get so worked up and understand the psychology of drivership. I know it because it happens to me, and it’s one of the biggest reasons I do not like driving. Using less oil, less pollution, exercise, cost — all side benefits. I don’t like driving because I don’t like driving. Of course I was driving in this case, but I was very calm. I’m pretty immune to the holidays because I don’t care. Consumerism is bad enough without a holiday to encourage it.

Legs and mind are still quite willing, so I’m looking forward to more rides throughout the holidaze. Life is good when you’ve got beautiful weather, open trails, strong legs and plenty of time.