Ride Home 2/2

Song sorta hummed on the way in to the garage: something that I thought was by Fleetwood Mac, but I don't know the actual words so I couldn't figure out what the words were to google for a name.

I was promised 50 degrees, so I underdressed accordingly. I didn't wear my fleece, headband, hat, or gloves. It wasn't actually 50 degrees. Ride was fine. Blew past traffic on Wilson (lane closure). Gave "death stares" the cars creeping into the bike lanes to "peak" around the traffic. I think I overvalue the death stare, (you know, the kind where you turn your head around after passing a car with the hope of making scowl-y eye contact with a scofflaw driver) as a means of moral suasion, but "death stares" are a part of daily life in Budapest, where I lived for a while. Walk too close to an old lady? Death stare. Get to a seat on the bus before someone else does? Death stare. Don't give a cashier exact change? Death stare. Get caught giving someone the death stare? Death stare. Needless to say, I've become accustomed to the death stare as a means of providing instantaneous disapproval to all actions great and small, so it just comes out naturally when I'm on my ride home. It's not effective, and I wouldn't even necessarily recommend it, but it makes me feel like I'm doing my (passive-aggressive) part to stand up for the rights of cyclists.

Big day tomorrow: first bicycle maintenance class at Revolution Cycles. I won't be live-blogging (since I might need to be doing something with a screwdriver or whatever), but I'll definitely re-cap. The maintenance class is part of a self-improvement project-cum-practical step to save money vis-a-vis basic bike repair, so it's definitely going to be useful. As I've intimated previously, I have less than zero mechanical aptitude. I'm slightly worried that my very presence will cause other's bikes to become mysteriously broken. Either way, I'll be getting a set of tools and a shop apron out of the deal, along with a much tutelage as they can muster with the assistance of whomever is the patron saint of bike repair. So, it'll be something new and I'll be sure to report the highlights with semi-accurate levels of bracing, self-effacing honesty.