the wet was super fucking wet

I was packing up to bike home from work today and this other guy was loading his hard shell pannier with $stuff and I made the mistake of saying:  "Have a nice ride."

He responded with:  "My wife saw you biking last week.  You were wearing shorts.  She thinks you're crazy."

I nodded.  Plenty of wives think I'm crazy.  I'm an engineer earning more coin than many of their husbands.  Although I care deeply about my kids I put them in school and pay a wage slave to look after them for a few hours afterward so that I can put in my full compliment of outrageously well paid hours and I don't like expensive clothes and I don't carry a purse but mostly what I do that is crazy is bike everywhere.

I love to bike.  I bike to work.  I bike home from work.  I bike to lunch.  Home from lunch.  After I go running I go for a little bike ride just because biking feels different and interesting after I run.  I bike with stuff like groceries.  I've biked carrying a bike, thankfully a folder.  I bike with my two kids on the seat of my custom extracycle.  I bike with my favorite Contraption Captain  (where do you think I got the custom extracycle) and I bike alone.

Also, I bike in the rain.

Overall I prefer biking in nice weather but I'll bike in the rain when it's rainy.  I prefer rain to wind but I'll bike on windy days also.  Worst is rainy windy days.  Last week there was a bunch of those.

When it is rainy I bike in shorts.  I know I'm going to get wet and wet shorts are less unpleasant than wet pants.  I know all about rain gear (actually I don't but I can't be bothered to be one of those loser bicyclists with an outfit for every degree on the thermometer) but outside of one (kindof smelly) flourescent jacket I just have regular clothes if by regular you mean "comfortable and soft and without sequins."

Now you're saying I must not be much of a rider.  Well fuck you too.  I bike plenty.  I'm just way more badass than you.

So last week I biked home in shorts while the wind drove at me and the rain made my socks slosh and that other bicyclist had to call his wife to come pick him up and she saw me riding in all that wind and wet and she thought "she's crazy" but I don't think I am because life is short.  Let me repeat that for you young idiots out there who get into it with the semi-trailers "Life is short."

Life is short.  Spend it out in weather, your hair curling wetly against your cheek, your bike flowing fast over the wet pavement and your rib cage expanding as your lungs and heart work like a team of beautiful horses to drive your legs fast and faster.  Spend it fighting the wind until you turn and get the wind pushing you faster and faster, right through that green light you can't usually make.

Or spend your life half-asleep.  Spend it "I woke up and was at home."  Spend it in your hermetically sealed car listening to the music you grooved on when you were in high school.  The music you listened to when you were truly alive as opposed to merely phoning it in.