Alternate Universe Version:

I was tired. It was a grueling unpleasant ride mostly in knee pain and I had been in a foul mood since the knee pain had started 20 minutes into the ride. But finally I was nearing the end and a cold ice pack beckoned; a cold ice pack followed by compression to relieve the swelling.

My mind had wandered and at a set of traffic lights, I accidentally put the front gears onto the small chainring. As I pulled away, it was a bit less painful of an effort but not so much that I looked down to check which gear I was in, but after a couple of turns, it felt near free of pain and I was turning the pedals with gay abandon feeling the smooth whirring as I leisurely spun my way towards salvation. The ease of the pedaling was almost hypnotic and I almost drifted into a dream like trance.

Suddenly I realized I was keeping pace with the cars ahead and then motorbikes and then another cyclist and then a group. It cannot be! I was hardly feeling any knee pain in the twilight of today's ride. I was like the wind, breezing my way through the chaotic streets. I spun along side lycra clad fellow cyclists shouting "woo hoo" as I returned their friendly waves.

I learned that keeping the bike in the small chainring makes me faster with hardly any pain compared with riding in the big chainring. Once a high enough cadence had been achieved, the steady routine pedaling did not take as much effort. I will be leaving the chain on the small chainring more in future.