28th ride of 2019 - Tuesday, 5/14/2019
2019 mileage: 1823.5
What a spectacular day for a ride—easily the nicest conditions I've experienced since sometime last summer. When I began, just past 11:00, it was 59°, and brightly sunny, and that climbed to 68° by the time I finished.
It was evidently a day for teenage machismo, too, as I witnessed in two separate incidents:
1) On the way out, when I was a little over two miles into the ride, I was barreling down the hill along S. Main, headed north (toward Michigan Stadium), and just as I was passing Pioneer High School, a young man headed north on S. Main cut blithely and blindly into the high school lot, without signaling or ever looking my way. I squeezed the brakes with every ounce of strength I had, and was barely able to avoid a collision. Then, as he whooshed past me, he finally looked at me about to hit him, and from his open window I heard him belatedly holler, "WOW!"
2) Just after I turned at Baker Rd. and started back toward Ann Arbor, I saw a burly young man who looked to be about 18, coming down the middle of the sidewalk toward me. Now I don't begrudge him riding on the sidewalk, since of course I do the same thing. (I have recurring thoughts of some sarcastic pedestrian telling me, "Hey, buddy, it's called a sidewalk, not a side ride.") But it would have been helpful if he was watching what he was doing, rather than riding with his head down, staring at the sidewalk directly below him. At the last minute, I was able to avoid a collision by veering into the grass on the right, but since the ground fell away there in a nearly 45° hill, I had all I could do to avoid rolling the trike. I was successful in this, however.
On the way home, as I rode by Michigan Stadium (the Big House), I stopped and took this picture.
I round the round trip to Baker Rd. again—20.2 miles in 2:26.
What a spectacular day for a ride—easily the nicest conditions I've experienced since sometime last summer. When I began, just past 11:00, it was 59°, and brightly sunny, and that climbed to 68° by the time I finished.
It was evidently a day for teenage machismo, too, as I witnessed in two separate incidents:
1) On the way out, when I was a little over two miles into the ride, I was barreling down the hill along S. Main, headed north (toward Michigan Stadium), and just as I was passing Pioneer High School, a young man headed north on S. Main cut blithely and blindly into the high school lot, without signaling or ever looking my way. I squeezed the brakes with every ounce of strength I had, and was barely able to avoid a collision. Then, as he whooshed past me, he finally looked at me about to hit him, and from his open window I heard him belatedly holler, "WOW!"
2) Just after I turned at Baker Rd. and started back toward Ann Arbor, I saw a burly young man who looked to be about 18, coming down the middle of the sidewalk toward me. Now I don't begrudge him riding on the sidewalk, since of course I do the same thing. (I have recurring thoughts of some sarcastic pedestrian telling me, "Hey, buddy, it's called a sidewalk, not a side ride.") But it would have been helpful if he was watching what he was doing, rather than riding with his head down, staring at the sidewalk directly below him. At the last minute, I was able to avoid a collision by veering into the grass on the right, but since the ground fell away there in a nearly 45° hill, I had all I could do to avoid rolling the trike. I was successful in this, however.
On the way home, as I rode by Michigan Stadium (the Big House), I stopped and took this picture.
I round the round trip to Baker Rd. again—20.2 miles in 2:26.
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