i almost didn't ride to work today. prescribed myself a rest day because i was so beat yesterday and my bike seems to be coming completely unglued. my plan was to drive, do some of the grocery stuff to clear the rest of the down-time schedule a bit, and see if i could figure out how to put the bike right in the freed-up time. i went to bed not intending to ride, woke up not intending to ride, made coffee not intending to ride . . . somehow that changed this morning by the time i had everything unpacked and set up to go in by car instead. so i thought about it for a while longer, poked myself here and there to see if i was just imagining how fine i felt, and in the end i just added more lube to my chain, told myself i'd just take whatever mechanics came up as a convenient enforcement of not pushing it, and i did go by bike.

and wow am i ever glad that i did. you just never know ahead of time which rides are going to turn out to be the ones you don't think you'll ever forget - the experiences you'd just never have if you didn't commute by bike. that weather was incredible even to cars, but i would have had a completely different picture of it if i'd been inside one. it was raining hard and cold, and as soon as i got out of the alley and onto the road all the wind hit me. just amazing weather - real, real wind, and real gusts. wild sky, wild rain, trees going nuts, sirens at every major intersection, traffic more or less stopped . . .

i know it sounds silly, but it was so cool. our weather is so damn uniform most of the time, but this was like a holiday from the ordinary commute, like those days when you go to school and something's happened to put the entire routine into disarray. i rode down the bike path section getting blown eight inches sideways at every cross street, and singing sea chanties at more or less the top of my lungs. i mean, you sort of had to. it was that kind of spirit in everything. by the time i got to the bridge i was just barely restraining myself from hooting and giggling out loud.

out on the bridge it was even wilder. i made a note to myself to watch out for the gusts up there, since it's so much more exposed than the road, and there is that whole issue with the barriers-at-centre-of-gravity point. so i wasn't stupid, and i was even ready to be so freaked out i'd have to get off and walk. it was a little freaky, but it didn't change my mood. the part i wasn't prepared for up there was how those gusts seem to suck all the breath out of you when they hit. very odd. i was not frightened, actually, but if it had kept up for too long i probably would have got off and ducked down just long enough to get my breath back, because it was starting to feel like panic. it was another thing you'd never have known if you hadn't done it: the whole behavioural model of physiology causing affect, not following it. when i got to work i emailed a friend with apnea to tell her about it.

at the intersection on the other end of the bridge, i got joined by another commuter, who must have been behind me over the bridge. just in time i noticed that her 'wow' was more wide-eyed than happy, so i bit off the 'wasn't that incredible?' part of my answer just in time and just said the 'yeah!' part. we had a quick, breathless little conversation about the whole wind-speed thing and the half-assed nature of the whole bridge design wrt bikers, and even the weirdness of the pathway on the opposite side with its corrugations and its lunatic tilt. i was very happy to hear that she also feels like she's falling over all the time on that side, and she also has to work even on the downslope. then the light changed and she took a different route.

the towel-dispenser guy at the health club seemed pretty pleased to see me and my demented beam, but i didn't get any eavesdropping in once i got past him. i had such a manic perma-grin going that the squash-players took one look at me and stepped back a pace (the spot of oil dead centre on my forehead probably didn't help much either). only other thing was that by the time i got to work my brakes seemed to be more or less shot, so once over the bridge i was careful, i swear.

it rained like demons most of the day, and then after all that it was calm and soft, just a very high grey cloud everywhere. i spent some time tinkering experimentally in the parking lot before i set out, and got my brake cables tightened and my gearing (apparently) more sorted out than it's been all week.

today just totally rocked. it's my new best-ever.

songs: 'south australia', the pogues; 'sickbed of cuchullian', the pogues; 'bottle of smoke', the pogues.