A Fixed Commute and Thoughts on the Color Taupe

Funny, Ironic, Sad state of Affairs... maybe. Yet, thanks to a turning of the planets or just some free time to think on the ride to work today I put a few things together. The first was the picture that you see above. The second was another new article that FixedGear [blogger] had posted. It included a link to this audio file but please don't listen to it now. I've yet to truly start on this venture and need to add the gesso.While chugging up 400n towards the USU campus I was given a myriad of things to speculate.

So that you know, heading up 400n gives wondrous view of Logan Canyon looming in the foreground with the Southern Cache valley, specifically "the Island", splayed out to the right. Sometimes I try imagining Bonneville Lake before it became a name in books or a feature in ArcMap. I invision tearing the Wellsvilles apart and forming the original lake with child like "gutter-dams" of infinite magnitude. **Rhythms of Kubla Khan adding into the constant rhythm of moving the bike up the hill. Isn't there a Xanadu restaurant up the hill somewhere...?**

Not yet...Don't listen Yet..

Today however, there was a Bald Eagle eye level with me imagining his/her own poetic assent as it hovered over "the island"[which is not an island at all but a "lower section of the city". It is more of an inverse island if you ask me]. It could have been trying to remember the words to Kubla Khan as well but I think it more likely that it was searching for someones poodle or maybe even a cold malnourished cat.
"Stick with the dog," I say.
Take out the head and you don't have to worry about the claws like you do on a hungry cat that may survive your first attempt at dispatch.
"Stick with the dog."
Listen it is crying for your attention. Can't you smell it? Well maybe not....but put your beak into it and you will!

Not yet...Don't listen to it Yet..

Yes, all this time I'm still peddling. Two pulses of traffic metered by the stop light at 500 East have passed me. Hey, I'm really not that fast but as I crest the hill and preparing to take a left into campus, I see a taupe car coming in the left hand lane. I'm in the right. Get this. It is in the left and I'm in the right. More peddle strokes... It passes me in my lane... The taupe Ford Taurus then merges back into the left lane right after passing me-without signal. So now I'm curious... is this what the driver of that car was thinking audio file? Yes, you can now listen. Am I the Frenchman, gay guy, cyclist, leftist-eco-liberal-pig... or all of the above and more to that driver?

To The Taupe Ford Taurus.... If you were trying to kill a French guy, think on this. Your were driving a car with the average color of the French mole, named after the astrological sign of the bull, and uses a derived Indo-European root[Taurus] instead of just saying "Ford Bull". Yes, 18 inches closer and you could have been the Cache Valley Zodiac killer.

For those that think I shouldn't have been on 400 in the first place. Well yes, there are better entry points to the USU campus. I could have ridden up old main hill as I have many mornings. Which reminds me that, a different path wouldn't have spared me almost being hit by the city truck that ran their stop sign near 500e and Center...

Conclusions? You ask. There are none. I don't know what was going on in either of those drivers heads. This is a rant and the second rant in a row on this blog.

Yea, I get mad and that could be the impetus of this post. Part of me is sorry that you have actually read this far.

YET, I think that Edward Abby and I will have a nice conversation on all this tomorrow on the way to work. With the hopes and distinct possibility of seeing our poodle feasting friend. I really don't see Xanadu or Kubla Khan as being a discussion point of tomorrow's ride either - Abby seems to be more of the do it yourself'er with sweat, grease, and dynamite.

I'm sure Hayduke would have ridden his bike if he lived in Logan. He would have put his jeep aside for a time. What I'm I kidding myself Hayduke would have never lived in Logan but he might have visited and he would have taken chances. He wouldn't have let anyone tell him were to ride or how fast to go or what was proper... Chances would have been taken.

In fact- now that I type this, I'm thinking about the redneck with the bumper sicker "SAVE a Deer - hit a cyclist instead" on the tail-end of some behemoth cretin-mobile. Yes,Yes,, I'm thinking these thoughts with an imaginary indelible marker in my hand...the "Did the Coyotes eat your Deer?" has been changed once. What is next?

Hopefully a wolf will be taking down an elk or an moose in Logan Canyon long before another motorist takes my wheel out of true... Abbey. You, me and Hayduke really need to get together soon. I'm thinking a long and quite ride without derailers (or dérailleur, if you prefer the French spelling and taupe colored cars) next time the hore frost invades the valley around the Bear River.