I’m on a bike. I’m a biker. A cyclist. A perspiring mass of arrogance hurtling toward you at approximately twelve to eighteen miles per hour. That means I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. I can swerve when I want. Spit when I want. Steal your weed whacker and throw it at a sewer rat when I want. Why? Because I’m on a bike.
Like an uncaged puma or a wound-up dad at a little league game, I strike fear into all who surround me. I’m unhinged. Unapologetic. Uncircumcised. And unwilling to ride within thirty meters of anything resembling a bike lane.
The rules of the road are meaningless to me, senseless casualties of my daily conquests. They dissipate the moment I mount my saddle. I change lanes without signaling. Pet dogs without asking. Cut off eighteen-wheelers so they jackknife and spill three tons of mangos, without thinking twice. Mangos everywhere. Mangos on the median. Mangos in your tailpipe. Mangos burned into the back of your feeble brain. Fuck you, mangos. I’m on a bike.
Lance Armstrong is my hero. I paid twelve hundred bucks to have his face tattooed over mine. I still look nothing like him. I need a lawyer.
I’m all go, all the time. I stop for nothing. For no one. Mostly out of principle. Also because I have no brakes. Just one, singular gear that’s virtually impossible to slow. I can’t stop. I won’t stop. But more importantly, I CAN’T STOP. MOVE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
If you’re driving an automobile, I’ll go out of my way to ruin your life. When you’re listening to NPR, I’ll ride up alongside you and scream Norwegian black metal. When you’re listening to Norwegian black metal, I’ll scream NPR. In Norwegian. Fuck you, Steve Inskeep. I’m on a bike.
ON YOUR LEFT.
I am anti-establishment. Anti-electricity. Anti-making any effort whatsoever to preserve my own life. I ignore yield signs, merge signs, gang signs, religious signs, and those signs that blink and make noise to signal a high-speed train is approaching. I’ve been hit by thirty-seven high-speed trains. Thirty of them killed me. It is not a pleasant way to die. Fortunately, like the rules of the road, the rules of death do not apply to me. Fuck you, Grim Reaper. I’m on a bike.
Yeah, I shave my legs. SO WHAT?
Pedestrians think they own the sidewalk. They’re wrong. I own the sidewalk. Another thing I own? A composting bin. I’m big into composting. I use the nutrient-rich humus to hurl at pedestrians as I scream menacingly, “Fertilize that, bro!” Then the pedestrians yelp and cry as they wipe the nutrient-rich humus from their slobbering faces, ignorant to the fact that I just saved them six months of mulching. Composting is fucking magical.
“Fuck you, Henry Ford!” That’s just something I yell whenever I see a pothole.
At red lights, I accelerate. At green lights, I accelerate again. At yellow lights, I find the nearest little old lady and give her the bird. Then I apologize by gifting her an actual bird. Joke’s on her. The bird is an emu. And it’s ornery as fuck.
Biking’s not a hobby. It’s a way of life. It’s liberating. My outlet, if you will. Whenever the day starts to weigh on me, I hop on my bike and I’m weightless. No anxiety. No stress. It makes me feel free. Free enough to rip off my clothes, teabag a fire hydrant in front of a Montessori school, then land myself in federal prison for twenty-five to thirty.
Fuck me, I’m on a bike.