Have you ever noticed how stop lights always seem to be red when you’re trying to hurry, but as soon as you start planning on a light being red so you can stop they’ll line up in an unprecedented row of green?
For example, maybe you’re riding your bike home from work, and find yourself in a bit of a race with a fellow Lycra clad commuter. Let’s further imagine that you’ve been exchanging leads and “words of encouragement” with this fellow commuter for the past several miles just to make sure the other person knows you’re really not feeling that tired (my favorite is when someone blasts up a hill and slows at the top so they can smile and exclaim, “wow, that was a good one” while the slower rider tries to catch their breath). At about the third mile maybe you decide you’re going to go for it and climb out of your saddle for a break away on a hill climb with Armstrong like brilliance. Just when you’re starting to get some seperation you’re pretty sure a bee has flown through your helmet air vent and is now stuck bashing around in your helmet.
Your first thought is probably to try and shake the helmet to get the bee out (instantly stopping is too convenient after just starting a climbing power surge). When that doesn’t work, you decide it’s completely acceptable to keep pushing the pace and shaking your head, because you know there are several stop lights coming up that will allow you to stop and remove the bee infested helmet if the shakes don’t free the bee (stopping at stop lights is acceptable and looked kindly upon by local law enforcement). Besides, you’re quite sure that you’re looking like a climbing badass, and a little bee shouldn’t put a stop to that.
On a side note, it’s very difficult to look like a badass when you’re wearing spandex and madly gulping air into your lungs while sweat pours off of your bright red face. I’m pretty sure adding a violently shaking head to the equation slides you pretty far down the badass scale and pretty high up on the “is that guy mentally stable” scale. But that’s beside the point.
Much more importantly, you should never forget that stop lights are not your friend. Never, ever, count on them to help you out. They will always make you late, and they will always kick you when you’re down. If, for instance, you find yourself riding up a hill in an unofficial race with a bee in your helmet maybe you should just pull off to the side of the road and remove the bee, because there’s a good chance this will be the time that all of the lights will line up green.
I’ve seen it happen.
