Lean Into It: When Bicycling and Life Throw You a Curve Ball

One day maybe a year or so ago — the pandemic has proven that time is a human construct and has lost all meaning — I was talking with my father, who art in another town in Texas. I must have been griping about some problem or another when he just blurted out, “Lean into it.” I was taken aback that he would know this phrase uttered more by hipper millennials. For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. I gathered my wits and said, “What do you mean?” I don’t remember the exact words but they were along the lines of “go with the flow,” or “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” possibly an explanation, “just accept that’s how things are and do your best, don’t worry about it.” Good stuff, Dad!

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Bus in the Bike Lane: A Recipe for…

Ingredients:

  • 40,000 pound city transit bus
  • Lazy-ass or law-breaking bus driver (see if you can find one that’s both)
  • One 28-pound steel-framed sea foam green Fairdale Weekender Archer bicycle named Sophie (substitutions allowed)
  • Experienced person on said bicycle, vulnerable to said buses
  • Narrow traffic and bike lanes on most dangerous section of road in Austin for bikes
  • Friday evening rush hour
  • Big pot of history of near misses with city buses for the bicyclist
  • Memory of John Anthony Diaz, a cyclist killed by same bus company (separate into two portions)
  • Kettle full of road rage for the bus driver
  • Add a pinch, a soupçon, or a schosche of irritating, smelly bus riders into the mix
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