Friday, July 30, 2010

Slow down there, big guy!

Today I biked from our new home to my new job for the first time. According to Google Maps, the route I took was 5.1 miles, which isn't terribly far, but the terrain is very hilly. A lot of ups and downs. I was planning on it taking about 45 minutes, so I allotted an hour, but managed to make it in about 30 minutes. Not nearly as bad as I was afraid it would be.

Of course, it was overcast, calm, and a cool 65 degrees, but even when we get to the hot summer weather it shouldn't take longer, just be more uncomfortable. (Mostly for my coworkers, since they'll have to smell my sweat.)

A few blocks before the office, there's a giant hill. As I approached it on my bike, I glanced up to the snowcapped top, where I could see wispy clouds and giant condors slowly circling. (I might be exaggerating: they were probably just vultures, lying in wait for hapless bikers foolish enough to challenge the hill.)

Anyway, I was halfway up the hill, in the lowest gear, barely going fast enough to keep from falling over, when I saw one of the giant snails that I've been noticing since we moved to California. I kid you not, my first thought was: "At least I'm going faster than him."

Pretty sad.

P.S. I called the snail "him" because only a guy snail would be stupid enough to set off on a trek across four lanes of traffic when your top speed is 6 inches/hour. He wasn't even at a crosswalk.

4 comments:

Joe Vasicek said...

Heh, my dad had a similar experience on his mission in Holland. While tracting, someone told a dog to sit and lie down or something, and my dad thought to himself "if that dog can learn the language, I can learn the language!"

Charity Z said...

When we lived in CA we had one of those large, in-shell snails (I believe the French call them escargot) that climbed onto the ceiling right over our front door and died there. He never fell off the entire time we lived there. Weird.

Cara said...

Road bike??

The Writer said...

No, one of those half-and-half, hybrid bikes. They're nice because they combine the speed of a mountain bike with the punishing trail capabilities of a road bike.