On more occasions lately than seems reasonable, rational, or sane, I’ve been yelled at for riding two-abreast on the bike path. Okay fine. This breach in etiquette would leave me chastened were it not for this one thing: there’s a center line and I am on the right side of it.
The fantastic, lovely, wonderful Rio Grande Trail from Glenwood Springs to Aspen, Colorado is a former rail right-of-way, and the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority does an amazing job of keeping these continuous 42 miles maintained and up to world-class standards. It’s got picnic tables with shade structures, restrooms, fix-it stations. It’s got interpretive panels, mileage markers, wayfinding signage. It rocks.
So when I’m riding with my friend Maria, chatting about chain-ring size and tread patterns (Ha! As if) and generally enjoying the sunshine and loveliness that is life in the Roaring Fork Valley, it’s a real bummer to come to the realization that the rider approaching and now departing was not, in fact, saying “have a nice ride!”, she was instead admonishing us for not riding single file.
There wasn’t enough time to understand what she said, in part because there wasn’t enough time to change my brain’s expectation of what would be said. Hear me out. For example, you don’t expect to walk up to the Walmart greeter and have them say “You have the IQ of a cocktail olive. I can hear the ocean when I stand next to you.”
This would be at least mildly shocking, and would take a beat to process. Similarly, it took me a hot second to hear and subsequently understand that she had barked out “Ride Single File!!”
And by that time she was 20 feet behind me and the best I could do was swerve and spit “What the….huh? Hey…HEY! Ummmm. Nuh Uh!!!”
This seriously lame response infuriated me even more as I would have preferred to cite code and logic in that moment instead of an incoherent verbal flail.
If I was riding alone, or even with a pal but we were riding single file, I could presumably ride as close to the dang line as I want, right? Right. And it happened not just once, but several times, and each time, there was no time to prepare for the issuance of that verbal turd. So I started to steel myself, to have quick, snappy legal rebuttals at the ready.
Is it you? Approaching stranger on the $9,000 Pinarello Dogma? No? How about you on the raspy Choco-Schwindilla? Oh! Oh! What did they just say??? My heart rate spiked, and my vision blurred (helpful). I opened my mouth wide to aid the volume and just before I spouted code and section, my brain kindly translated their passing message:
“Have a nice ride!”
Given that it was the Roaring Fork Valley, I would have been more surprised to hear somebody say “Have a nice ride” than to be admonished for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
On the bright side at least she was paying attention and realized there are others on the trail, not hammeing with her head down in an aerodynamic tuck and anerobic daze