I’ve had four flat tires. I was tupped by a Chrysler Grand Cherokee. A dim witted Grad student locked his beach cruiser to my bike on campus stranding me for a couple of hours. I’ve seen the hardcore cycling community up close. I’ve found a couple of Hobo encampments on the river banks in PB. I’ve been strangled by an orthodox Jew.
I ride an old orange Huffy that I bought at a garage sale in Chicago five years ago for ten dollars. Big fat tires. The three working gears are as sticky as glue. It’s not good on hills. But still, I’ve started cycling home from work twice a week. It’s twenty miles but it’s amazing. Most of the route takes me down hill, right past the bay. I work in La Jolla (the jewel) and like much of San Diego it’s intensely beautiful. Palm trees wave in the breeze. The bay water sparkles in the sunshine. Jet skis chase each other from pier to pier. Pelican’s circle in the sky. The sea breeze is as tasty and wholesome as a gourmet wrap full of shrimp with lemon and piquant sauce.
I fixed three of the flats myself with my puncture repair kit and a bowl full of water. I saw my brother do it once, circa 1984, in the front room of our little terraced house in the North of England. He didn’t exactly show me how to do it, there’s four years between us and he regarded as a total annoyance for most of our youth, but I must have seen enough to remember how it’s done. You drown the inner tube in water to locate the puncture hole. Then you sand it down a bit and glue on the bull’s eye sticky patch. After the third time I decided to replace the whole tire, the protective outer layer had worn thin in several places. The novelty of fixing your own bike punctures wears off pretty quick.
At the bike shop in Mission Hills the stoned hipsters who work there joked with me about a naff pop song that was playing on the radio. One of them screamed that he hated the song and wanted to kill everyone associated with the record. He hadn’t realized I’d come in and was stood at the counter and he became a little embarrassed, the roles of shop worker and customer hovered over us, the specter of conformity.
“You’re probably like friends with the band or something…” he said when he discovered me.
“It’s my favorite song of all time,” I joked. “AND I’M NEVER COMING IN HERE AGAIN.”
They laughed and fit me a new tire in about three minutes. It’s a cool shop, a bunch of them work there and it’s like the record shop from High Fidelity, but with bikes. Bike Fidelity. They eat pizza from the great place next door and stand around talking and mending bikes. It’s kind of idyllic. They’re always busy and they really know their shit. They take care of business in a swift and efficient way that is a pleasure to behold.
It took me an hour and a half to get the police to come and cut the lock on the beach cruiser that was chaining my bike to the rack. I would find out later from campus security that the bike belonged to a numb Grad student who didn’t even realize his lock had been cut and attempted to just ride it away right from next to where the cops were gathered, wondering what to do with it. Note to self, a Kryptonite U bend lock is the only thing that will stop a theft, the cop cut through the plastic coated chain of the combination lock with a small pair of wire snips, it was way too easy.
At the bottom of Gilman Drive the Grand Cherokee blocked the bike lane where it enters the cut through to the path by the train line. I had a green light, but I had to dismount to lift it up the curb in front of the jeep. Just as I was doing it the driver took her foot off the brake and hit me up the curb.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE DOING?” I screamed at her. She wound down her window, claimed it was a mistake.
“I didn’t see you,” she said.
It made no sense at all. She was in her 50’s. She was listening to an ipod. She had a pair of big shades that covered most of her face.
The adrenaline turned me gargoyle. I was rightly angry. It could have been so much worse. SoCal drivers are terrible. The jeeps and SUV’s are the worse. They have a reckless sense of entitlement. As a cyclist, at certain intersections and at certain places, it feels like you’re dicing with death. Cars kill pedestrians and cyclists all the time. You know what cyclists do to cars? They slow them down a little bit. It’s not even close to being a fair fight. But I wasn’t hit exactly, more like pushed, jarred.
“Are you OK?” she said. I realized I was and turned away from her in disgust.
I listen to podcasts on my ipod as I ride. New Yorker short stories, This American Life, Radiolab, Wiretap, The Best Show. Sometimes I switch to music. Mingus is getting a lot of playtime.
On the underpass, on the Rose Canyon trail running next to the river and wetlands from PB to the bayside there are a few places where the homeless gather. The camp off Balboa has an edge to it. Alcohol, Meth, I don’t really know. It could be a set from Breaking Bad season two. Desperation hits you like squid ink, there’s always a gathering of sad shark eyed folk, zombie groaning, deeply tanned, passing bottles back and forth. Sometimes they have a little fire going. The underside of the bridges on Grand are the nesting sites of the lost men, bag ladies, Vietnam vets dragging dirty shopping cats. At the corner by the golf course and basketball court a couple of these characters live. Fisher Kings. They stink of urine, dirt, shit. You cycle round a corner and the smell hits you like a fist. In my mind I have called them the Mud Turtles. They are cocooned with all their worldly possessions. So far they have always been asleep as I fly by and I have not clearly seen their faces. I the opportunity arises I will help them somehow but I think they just want to be left alone.
On the cycle path by the bay and along Friars and into downtown I am often passed by the serious cyclists on fast road bikes. They cut through the air like razors, their profile as thin as paper, a harmony of muscle and machine. Sometimes however they are not so thin. Sometimes it’s an old man cyclist with calves like knotted rope but huge bulging bellies of beer. It’s possible to cycle and be very fit and yet still carry an extra thirty pounds of stomach around your waist. These guys have passed me going up steep hills, barely breaking sweat, the energy and appetite of old bulls, of medieval kings. Legs like athletes, stomachs like pregnant gorillas.
After I was hit by the Grand Cherokee I couldn’t help brooding that I should carry a lump hammer on my bike to beat out at the cars when they get to close. They may take me down. But I will go down swinging. Daft. I stopped by the bay, took some deep breaths and waded out into the water, calming myself, clearing my mind, choosing to let it go, enjoy the moment. I was OK. It’s all OK.
Near the Hilton on the bay there is a section of the park with a couple of hills that are perfect for kite flying. The wind swoops in off the ocean and there are always people out clutching string tied to all kinds wondrous multicolored, boxes, birds, and deltoids. There’s the park, about ten acres, then the bike path, then another thin strip of grass verge with palm trees and the occasional BBQ pit and picnic table and then there’s the water. I cycled on the path, mile twelve or so on my homeward ride, and then I was clotheslined. A string suddenly wrapped around my neck. It happened in a second, it coiled like a snake and bit in. I hit the brakes and clawed myself free. The string flew off me up into the air. I looked around for the offender. A man was flying his kite, not in the huge acres of space where everyone else does it, but on the small verge next to the water, right across the bike lane. Nuts. The park has hills. The verge does not. The verge has trees. He was flying his kite at a stupidly low angle, less than forty five degrees. He was with his son. They were orthodox Jews, complete with black suits and yamacas and long curlicue sidelocks. He smiled at me, I can only think it was through nervousness. We looked at each other.
“GO OVER THERE,” I shouted, pointing to the clear open acres of park.
“Sorry,” he said but he didn’t seem to be too helpful. In fact, he continued to fly his kite, struggling with the low angle and the breeze. Silly goofy grin still fixed to his face.
“GO OVER THERE,” I shouted again. He still did not move. Another man, a witness, a Latino doing tricks with a football, shook his head at me in sympathy. Madness. I rubbed my neck, there was a thin rope burn. It was like something out of Curb Your Enthusiasm or a Coen Brothers film. He could have moved ten feet and been out of everybody’s way. He could have at least asked me if I was alright. I called him a ‘prick’. He son stared at me like a startled owl. What can you do? Carry scissors for the kites and hammers for the cars?
To paraphrase Gertrude Stein about Majorca, San Diego is paradise, if you stand it.
