Out of the oven, and into... A mild high of low 70's

Prologue
I wish I could say that I started my trip to Montpelier in keeping with the sort of pacific theme I'd staked out for the trip as a whole. United Airlines had other ideas.

If you've checked in for a flight recently, you've noticed the little ushers they pay to stand around and point out the obvious to you. Well, those overpaid twits watched me stand in the check-in line for well over 40 minutes, with an obvious bike box sitting in my little push cart. I was the only person in the entire line with an oversized item, I had to have stood out like a sore thumb. I still haven't figured out why, but they waited until I was the next passenger to be called to the counter to tell me that I couldn't check something that big at that counter, and that I'd instead have to haul it around to the backside of the ticketing area, to "counter number 7."

Counter number 7 was, in fact, designated for international flights. And the queueing area was absolutely empty. So, I strolled up and explained my situation to the guy working there, only to have him A] Tell me he was baffled as to why they wouldn't check me in at the previous counter and B] That I had just missed the 45min cutoff for checking bags. In other words, I couldn't get on the flight, unless I just ditched my luggage. The next flight? FIVE FUCKING HOURS LATER. Not having any other options, I resigned myself to it and told him to go ahead and move me to the next flight, to which he responded "Oh, and they did tell you about the $85 fee for checking the bike, right?". I was ready to go fucking postal. No shit. "So, what you're telling me is that, not only do I have to hang out in this abysmal airport for the next five hours, but I have to pay you people for the coveted privilege of wasting those 5 hours of my life, at a rate of nearly $20 per hour?".

"Um, yes. I'm really sorry, sir."

One would think that given their fuckup, they'd have waived that fee. Of course not. That's ok. I'm a master of polemic at this point, and I've got two whole months to do nothing but craft the most pointed, fire-breathing letter to United's customer relations department. In fact, I'm almost positive that's precisely what the Langdon Street Cafe set out to create a space for, when they opened.


The Crawl
The following morning, I woke up at something like 8am, which is more or less standard for me at home. Of course, at home, my life moves at an altogether other speed, and often functions best when I'm up and at it early. At that hour, KCRW's webcast is still runnning the morning news programs from the BBC, and it's an ideal time to tend to mundane little tasks around the house and read the news before work obligations begin to kick in. Here, there are virtually no work obligations. In fact, there's really no schedule to speak of. And I'd begun to figure out that if I don't pace myself here, I'm going to find myself nickle and diming my money away on shit I don't need, in order to entertain myself.

So, back to sleep I went. Around 11am, I woke back up, and figured it a more reasonable time to begin my day. After chatting with one of my new "housemates", and showering, I took a deep breath and committed myself to the steep crawl down into the center of town.

Now, at home, hills rarely factor into my daily plotting as a significant prohibition or consideration. For the year before I moved to Capitol Hill, I'd crawl down 16th just about every day. The day before I left DC, I spun my way from northern Bethesda all the way down to the east end of Capitol Hill. I'd like to think I'm alright with these things. Well folks, yesterday, on the outskirts of Montpelier, VT... I just might've met my match (Gucci BMX chain notwithstanding).

For those uninitiated, bikes built up with a fixed gear don't coast. Ever. Moreover, the majority of the braking process involves resisting the forward motion of the pedals (imagine stopping a unicycle). Short of a front brake, the entirety of the process of controlling speed works this way, and relies entirely on the rider bidding sheer muscular strength against such forces as (oh...) gravity, to regulate speed.

Well, the Main Street hill into downtown Montpelier nearly killed me, kids. It's essentially a mile-long downward crawl, and when I say downward crawl, I don't mean Connecticut Ave., or even Mass. Ave. This shit is not a joke. Imagine crawling down Cleveland Ave. for a full mile, with no space to retreat from cars.

I'm quite proud to say that I fared alright up to the point at which the hill pulls a tight 180 at its steepest point. This leaves one heading into a straightaway decline with more momentum than anyone would really want to have. Traversing is off the table, unless one wants to tango with oncoming cars. About ten yards out of the turn, I realized that -- fight as I may -- (before reaching a flatter area, anyway) I was not going to make the bike go any slower, and at the same time, I was moving too fast to swing off the road to a less trafficked neighborhood street (a la runaway truck ramps). Skidding at this speed would've likely pulled my right cleat out of the clip; a possibility so disastrous I won't even get into it. Skipping probably risked the same, and even had it not, would've required wiggle room for keeping control that this one-lane scenario wasn't about to afford me. I'm sterilizing the description considerably, by the way. My inner monologue was more like "My fate is officially in the hands of some higher power."

Now, granted... Any seasoned commuting cyclist will tell you that probably 40% of what they wager on is a knowledge of the roads they're traveling. You can relax a bit in otherwise demanding stretches, if you know that conditions ahead will put control back squarely in your camp. I knew nothing of this commute, really. Unfortunately, I didn't really have any option but to dive straight in, as it's the only way into town. And my ignorance of the route probably contributed significantly too the danger in which I found myself.

Fighting (quite literally) with every muscle I could coax into the enterprise, I pulled the bike decidedly back into control as the incline eased up some. By the time I passed the Middle School, I was golden. I was also pretty sure that I was doing backflips inside my own skin, and it took 20 minutes of spinning around downtown to get my nerves under control. By the time I clipped out in front of the co-op, my quads and calves were spasming like I was suffering from some sort of dystrophy, and my arms felt like they were on fire, all the way up through my deltoids.

As the sun set last night, I tightened my shoes, flipped on the blinky, and began the climb back home. Having done the crawl in, I knew well what I was up against, and I'm pleasantly surprised to report that I only walked about 100 yards of it (mostly that goddamn 180), and pulled it through to home -- even when the sky opened up on me in the home stretch. Of course, I woke up this morning feeling like someone had cut my calves, thighs, and ass cheeks open and inserted scuba weights before sewing them back up. Just stepping over the edge of the tub, to get into the shower, was a fairly painful undertaking.

A morning lap session at the pool adjacent to the condo, and a front brake seem to be in order, should I like to ease my way into the demands of my daily routine, here.