Failing Bridge

I just learned that Lance Armstrong got hit by a car, and then did a triathalon three days later. (I'm not worthy!)

I was running tremendously late this morning, so I decided to bike part of the way, and take MAX the rest. The route goes through the neighborhood, past the collision of gentification and poverty and black middle-class and drug wars--shack next to restored Craftsman next to modest, well-kept house. Coming home last night, I had passed a lot of cats--and a lot of female persons holding cats like babies. But the neighborhood seemed devoid of cats this am.

I'll cut to the chase--the best part of the ride was crossing the Failing Bridge, as it used to be called (now it's the Failing Ped. Bridge), named for Mayor Failing of Albina, which was incorporated into Portland in the early part of last century. The Failing Bridge does look like a particularly pathetic pedestrian bridge over I-5, though riding across it is fine--it's plenty substantial. To make things even better, I got up the ramp without stopping or walking, and I very quickly caught the MAX.

I'm still reading Mike Magnuson's Heft on wheels: a fieldguide to doing a 180. I just got to the part where he's riding with his cycling group and can't keep up, and someone remarks that he's too slow to ride with the group, which spurs all kinds of self-improvement. Honestly, it makes me feel a little hopeless. Here's this guy--my age, my weight--who has been cycling all of his life--and he can't keep up with the group. And here I am, finding it hard to ride up very slight inclines. Yikes.

The weird thing is, I do like it. I wish that I wasn't so publically demonstrating my lack of bicycling prowess on a practically daily basis, but I'm still compelled to do it. When I'm not thinking about the marathon, I'm thinking about how I could put my old bike on rollers. Have I lost my mind?