practice tri/evil motorist

Saturday morning was the team practice tri. It was a beautiful day out at Stevens Creek reservoir, perfect for the fall participants to work in one last dress rehearsal before beginning their final taper for Treasure Island.

Everything seemed to go off pretty smoothly. We had all the volunteers we could have hoped for, mostly from the spring team. It was a great chance to catch up with some people, however briefly! It further cemented my decision to hang around for one more spring season.

I spent the morning as a buddy swimmer--helping less confident swimmers cover the distance without psyching themselves out too much. The water was colder than any of the swims we've done so far this season, I'd guess neighborhood of 59-60 degrees. The reservoir sits in a narrow canyon that holds onto cold air and sees less sunlight than open areas.

By the time I got out of the water, the faster cyclists were finishing up and heading out on the run. Everyone did a fantastic job and completed all three disciplines looking strong.

I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone does at their event in two weeks.

Sunday, I managed to drag my butt out of bed for the captains' ride up in Portola Valley. It felt good to be out and about on Eddie again. I've limited myself to spinning while my car has been in the body shop; my bike rack didn't fit too well on the rental and I didn't want to risk getting grease all over the backseat interior. Anyway, the ride was meant to be leisurely, but since I'M not tapering for anything, I kept it at a brisk spin the whole way. No hills or anything, anyway.

Unfortunately, in Woodside, one of the guys on our team got a vicious tongue-lashing from a motorist in a Land Rover. I'm not sure why she singled him out--there were about ten of us sitting at a red light together and we'd all been descending Woodside Road single file. She kept screaming at him to share the road, and that she'd had to get into the left lane to get around him. He held it together pretty well, and for how I tend to react to those situations, so did I...in that I managed to keep my mouth shut. Nothing constructive would have come from me at that moment. I had to bite back the urge to tell her if she didn't need such a big gas-guzzling car for her lazy, bony, day-spa lurking ass, maybe there would have been enough room to pass him safely without changing lanes. Followed, of course, by the extension of a strategically chosen digit.

In any case, what someone should have said was that California law states that motorists are to treat cyclists like slow-moving vehicles, and if you must change lanes to safely pass them, SO BE IT. Besides, the bike lane on Woodside road is, like, eight feet wide. So, she was full of crap to begin with.