Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Coffee, Collies and Cyclists

Since I live in a gated golf and river community, most of my neighbors are either retired or play at work. I'm perhaps the only person out of 1,200 homes that actually works for a living. So for most people its just play time. So I'm not surprised when I ride my bike in the morning to find people casually walking their dogs. You know what casual walking means? The person on one side of road with coffee cup in hand while dog on the leash is on the other side of the road so cyclist can't get by unless he runs over the leash! This happens all to often. Sometimes, when Tony is riding with me, I say in a loud voice to Tony "NOW DON'T GET THE DOG CAUGHT IN YOUR SPOKES THIS TIME!"

So I'm alone this morning doing my ride, cruising along in aero position at 20 mph when I see a guy drinking his coffee walking his collie on a long leash. Its a piece of road that ends in a cul-de-sac or as Tony the Brit would say a round-about. I turn around and come back down the street, but since the street is just over a mile long its a good ride.

So I pass collie and coffee drinker from behind giving them a wide berth. So as I turn around and head back the collie is now in the middle of the road and coffee drinker is on the side. They both see me coming. Coffee drinker starts to cross the road! Now where do I go? Do I stay on the right side of the road...that's where they are headed or do I go left into traffic, which there is rarely any but can happen and since there is a bend in the road I can't see oncoming traffic.

As I approach coffee drinker he is now in the middle of the road with the collie in the right gutter. Good I think, I'll go left pretty much in the middle in case a car is coming but now I'm doing 18 mph. YUP, just as I pass coffee drink he raises his cup to take a sip, I say GOOD MORNING, the collie sees me, he starts after my wheel, I zip passed only to have the collie wrap around coffee drinkers legs and spill the coffee all over coffee drinker! DAMN YOU is all I hear from coffee drinker.

So it was an uneventful ride this morning of 25 miles. I'm going to swim at lunch and go to the weight room tonight.

Today is my youngest sons birthday! Happy Birth Day Josh.

6 comments:

TriDaddy said...

Are the dogs there retired too? I have a dog to walk and couldn't possibly imagine drinking coffee with all of the sudden bursts!

soccerdad said...

that is great! finally we have a dog-cyclist story where the cyclist (and his readers) gets the last laugh!

Oldman said...

fun thing is, i've gone by this dog before and he didn't go after me. so i guess today he was feeling frisky!

Dr. Iron TriFeist :) said...

Karma sucks man. Dogs will be dogs. The owner got what he deserved.

Happy Birthday to your son.

Nancy Toby said...

Too bad that coffee wasn't hotter.

Comm's said...

glad your back oldman. I miss your musing and mussings. BTW as someone who knows-if you have a seizure by yourself you don't know it but try explaining it to the guy whose yard you just drove your car up on. True story.

What are you getting some rain lately. hadn't heard anything about that.