Biking in the rain... yeah, right!

If you ever wanted to know what a non-violent rant is... this is it!

First, if ever there was a time someone could talk me into throwing away the green-way and start using the highway, this is the time.

I had to go to the doctors today for a pre-op exam. It was raining just a bit as I left the office at around 12:15 pm and headed towards 21st and Noriega to see my doctor. As I am riding down 17th street through the mission, I encounter a steady stream of rain that gradually, but ultimately, moved into the torrent category.

Do you know what it is like to ride a bike with water running UP your nose? Think of drowning while participating in the geriatric tour-de-france... lovely. Who needs to breathe while riding up hills and dodging cars?

After 30 minutes of riding in a vertical flood, I finally make it to my doctors, with every last inch of my head, arms, hands, legs and feet drenched and freezing from the cool temperatures. I would have been dryer coming out of a pool!

The woman at the counter asked me if I was all right, looking up at me with big, frightened eyes. Then again, she always looks at me with big, frightened eyes.

After an hour or so at the doctors office, I turn around to head home so I could then go to the hospital for tests (x-rays and blood work). Once again as I am heading back, on 21st towards Golden Gate Park, the rain decides I have not had enough pounding for one day, so it starts to pick up tempo. As I am riding down a long gradual hill, with the wet rode and splashing cars behind me and before me, through my blinded, wet eyes, I realize that the Judah line subway train is at the bottom. Will it move out of the way before my wet break pads and drenched tire rims slow me down to the point of looking like Wyle E. Coyote on the dessert floor? Splat! It moved.

I get home and quickly focus my attentions on the hospital, with my soaked clothes, head and shoes. I reach the hospital, walk along its well-waxed floors and get onto the elevator to go to reception to check in, only to be told I will have to come back tomorrow, there is a backlog.

I thanked them kindly, after crying like a little school boy who just lost his favorite toy, and carried my sorry looking, wet, lame, pathetic body back to the elevator, back through the lobby and out into that wonderful place we call home... wet, miserable, tired, annoyed and yes, finished.

You have won today mother nature. You have beaten my good-natured, hug-a-tree attitude. But I will return, refreshed, renewed and ready to pedal again.

So send me your rain, send me your wind, drop those temperatures... bring it on!

Just not today.

I say adieu. I am tired, I am cold, I have no energy left; as Kramer once said on Seinfeld, "stick a fork in me Jerry, I'm done."

Ernie