Time to admit it...I've lost that loving feeling

Ok, a lot of catching up on a dreary rainy day.

Its been over a year since I had a near miss on my bicycle that shook me up more then I realized at the time.

 On the way home from work I have a long down hill that if I peddle my ass off I can clear 40mph. A speed that has no business being done on a sidewalk (beside it being illegal to ride bicycles on side walks). Smiling at kids in the back of mini vans as you pass them in the chicane and the bottom of the hill always a hoot.  1/4 mile of mostly flat before I have to start climbing the hill out of the valley where I can keep up a solid 20mph before my legs and lungs start screaming. Then I switch to the side walk (yep illegal) and I peddle my fat ass up the hill at 6-8mph.

I time my trip through the valley so that I am between main pulses of traffic. It usually works out well. People who manage to get between the main pulse can change lanes and get past me without really having to slow. Everybody happy.  I'm not one of those jerks that filters at lights just to make 20 cars have to pass me in the next 1/4 mile. I let them get past me before I take the lane and try to get off the road to let people pass if they cant get around. 5 years and it has worked pretty well.

 So I was recently having more and more close calls always in the same spot in side of a curve just a few hundred feet before I took to the side walk to climb out of the valley. Had a complete JACKASS plumber decide to roll coal (floor their diesel to get it to pump out black smoke) on me instead of changing lanes. Speed racers going fast catch me on the inside of the curve etc

The one that got me shook up was a little old lady with a even older little old lady in the passenger seat in a white mini van. The lady really needed to park it. She no longer had the skill set to be driving.

She was fixated on the lines and staying between them come hell, high water or a bumper...on a Bicycle I had none of the above. So despite me using the right half of the lane she centered it. If I didn't see her coming who knows what would have happened but I did and I got so far over to the right I could no longer peddle because my right peddle would have hit the curb. I'm beating on the side of her van to get her to change lanes (there was nobody else around to prevent it) and she just kept on coming. I slap the mirror flat so it doesn't hook my handle bars as it comes past.  I look down and see this frail old lady in the passenger seat looking up at me like I was doing something wrong as I beat on the car and its over a second later. I managed not to crash despite her best effort to kill me.

I was so damn mad I was screaming. She didn't stop. In fact I bet if you asked her I attacked her car she was minding her own business,. It ate at me the rest of the summer and fall and Thanksgiving week I pretty well stopped riding to work. She ruined my love of cycling and my cherished bikes have sat collecting dust for a year. 

I need to ride. I rode to improve my health. It worked. I was in the best shape in the last 30 years. Ive gained 35lb since I stopped but I just cant get that desire back.