An intimate relationship...

...with the road. I've been riding my bike to work for the last, um, forever, and I just realized something this morning. A car drove by me this morning, passing probably a few inches from my arm. The thought hit me, "I trust the road with my life." A man was killed a few years ago because his bike tire hit the curb and bounced him into traffic. Everyday I hop on my bike and start the 2-mile ride to work over bumpy, cracky, constructiony Santa Ana roads, always with a prayer that all will go well. It is a form of relationship, intimate in the fact that I give all my trust away to the unknown and hope for the best.

I got the biking fever from the missionary days, and then again when I thought about training for a marathon and the next day my knee gave out in the middle of a 6-miler and has never really been the same since. I took up biking and my bike - both the old mission clunker and the new 10-speed, 10-dollar garage-sale special I got two years ago- has grown to become another appendage. After a full week of bike riding, I always feel like things are moving so slowly on the weekend. 'Why aren't I going faster?' I wonder as I walk.

This post was inspired by Triết's post, briefly mentioning his bike in an entry all about cold weather. I used to ride bikes with him from member's houses to investigators' homes, until he got a nasty stomach condition that came from excess oatmeal consumption. Oh, wait.. no, that was Mẫu. I think Triết suffered from a broken lung. Anyway, we had some good times, especially when Mẫu took a nose dive into the sprinkler ditch and when Hiếu got hit by a car. Oh wait, that was a not good time. Thinking about that makes me want to put my bike away for good.