Of course it's fucking scary.

Found myself in a discussion with co-workers about riding in the city. Most them don't do it, cause it's too scary. And one of them used to do it, but doesn't do it anymore, cause it's too scary.

Well, of course it's fucking scary.

It's like being a minnow in a sea full of great white fucking sharks. There are doors swinging out to break your collar bones. If you fall off, you land on fucking asphalt. If someone farts funny while talking on the phone and smoking a cigarette, they can run right the fuck over you with a bump and a bump and thanks for fucking playing.

For some stupid reason, I catalogued my accidents for them, which just made them talk more about how scary and dangerous it was, and mostly I found myself agreeing with them. And for about half-a-minute I thought, "Christ, maybe I should stop riding every day."

And then I remembered a couple of the reasons I'm not going to do that.

First of all, it's fucking thrilling. You zip in and out and through and around traffic, all these stupid, drooling, going-nowhere cars, and it's like you're super-charged. You can't be stopped. You leave them all, sitting right where they were in their crappy exhaust and their dripping, wheezing enginey shittiness.

Second, it's great fucking exercise. I mean, I ride about half-an-hour to work and back twice a day. I ride to the store. I ride to AA meetings and to friend's houses. I ride. And I'm in great shape. Almost all my friends are fat. HA! You're fucking fat, and I'm not. Suck shit! I ride.

Third, you see parts of the city that you would NEVER see walking or driving or whatever other way you want to get around. A bike makes frivolous adventure much less frivolous. Like, "What's down that alley over there? I don't know. I think I'll ride the fuck over there and find out. It'll only take a second." The difference between an eight-mile route to work and a ten-mile ride to work is nothing. I take a little extra time. I see all kinds of different shit.

Riding is awful. If you ride, you will fall off. Hazards will come flying at you like buck shot. You will sweat and bleed, and your heart will race, and you'll get jacked on adrenaline, and people will roll their stupid ass windows down and shout the most awful things at you.

But you'll ride away. You're on a fucking bike, and they're not.