~~~
Day’s Verse:
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:12-13
~~~

Pet peeves:
Cars that pass me too closely when I have no shoulder to ride in.

Often it’s the really big semi trucks that do this, and their passage shakes me up; every time I feel I’ll be knocked aside like a leaf, totally unnoticed. Frankly, I feel quite frightened to be passed when I could reach out and touch the passing vehicle. (Similar, but more demoralizing, is being passed by other bicyclists. I work hard, but I know my limitations; I ride to commute, not to race, but it still depresses me to have a brightly-colored, narrow-wheeled rider zip by me like riding in that spot is easy. Which it probably is for them.)

Cars that pass too far away.

I know this sounds crazy, like why should I care if the car chooses to drive totally in the oncoming traffic lane to avoid me? But for some reason it irks me, because while I like to have some space, I hardly take up an entire lane. I’m not a wide load, here, people! Vehicles from Jettas on up do this, although it seems SUVs and pickup trucks tend more towards this behavior, possibly because the drivers have a harder time with their car-proprioception.

Cars that honk to let me know they’re passing.

It doesn’t help, and it scares me even more than being passed within a hair’s-breadth. Do NOT honk unless I’ve done something wrong! And even then it doesn’t really help anything. (A semi truck did this once while passing extremely close to me. Yikes!)

No shoulder on major roads like Route 85.

With all that traffic, you’d think there would be space for bicyclists or a broken down car. But the shoulder tends to hug the side of the road or sidewalk, leaving me with little recompense but to ride in the road itself. (Sidewalks are too bumpy to get any decent speed going.)

Potholes, cracks in the road, and storm drains with steep dips.

All of these make the ride a little harder, slower, and unncessarily painful, as well as sometimes forcing me to cycle farther away from the side of the road than I would like. Also they tend to accumulate water when it rains, which cars often splash on me.

Stoplights on uphills or downhills (more generally, momentum-robbers).

The two times you really need momentum, and sometimes a red light shoots that MxV down to zero in a moment. Riding downhill I particularly begrudge having to slow for anything, since I put so much work into gathering up some good speed at those points. Also related to this are drivers who forget to look for bicyclists. They will occasionally turn in front of me (or, in one memorable case, back out of a driveway almost into me), forcing me to brake abruptly.

Not cycling related, two spaces before the beginning of a new sentence.

All the reports we format come in templates with two spaces, and it can’t be changed because the two spaces are part of a larger, company-wide template. But accoring to Uncle Gerard, an editor and my source for all writing-related minutiae like this, single spaces between each sentence has been the standard for computer writing for the last 25 years. Why put two spaces where one will do? Again, not extremely logical, but I have always only put one space, and now I have to constantly look at reports where two spaces smirk at me from the beginning of every sentence.

OK, I feel much better now. Life actually has settled into a fairly smooth rhythm with its shares of ups and downs that average out to a happy, contented mean.