You win some, you lose some

I started my day today at 3:30am by taking Robbie to Boston in order to fly to Emile's homeland for the Trinidad Cycling Classic. I don't agree with that hour of the day. Thankfully, I got home early enough to slip back into bed and sleep a few more hours. I'm such the friendly brother.

I think all professional cyclists are ambassadors for our sport as it tries to dig itself out of its share of controvercy. This is especially relevant for domestic cyclists here in the United States, since cycling isn't often considered among the typical American sports. What better time to talk to our countrymen than when they're young and receptive to new things? So shortly after waking up for the second time of the day, I was off to my elementary alma mater, Swasey Central School.

I had a blast with the kids! I spoke for about an hour to 75 students covering all the standard topics: define what it means to be a professional cyclist, safety, diet, teamwork, and so forth. I really had no idea what to expect, so I additionally had to cover all sorts of questions that most 4th graders apparently have right on the tip of their tongues... how often do you crash? How often do you win? How do you stay upright with those skinny tired? You EAT on the bike? Where do you live? Who was your 3rd grade teacher? At the end of my session I asked my audience how many of them now wanted to be professional cyclists, and was very pleased to see about half of their hands go in the air!
... and then it was time for autographs...

And now on to, "you lose some." That afternoon, I went out for a standard 2 hour bike ride. Everything was going well enough until I was cruising along past a Dunkin Donuts. A woman driving her Dodge Stratus stupidly thought that it was a good idea to cut in front of me to pull into said donut shop. This wasn't your run-of-the-mill cut off the cyclist; this was me yanking hard on my brakes to avoid smashing into her passenger side door. This was her car with tires loudly squealing to make the turn without causing our accident (yes, she fully realized that I was there).

So then it was me dropping a full barrage of F-bombs and S-notes to let her know what I thought about her cavalier maneuver. Honestly if I didn't have lightening quick brake fingers, I would have tumbled head over teakettle into this car. What a moron.

Alas, now this person has a complete distain for cyclists. So over the course of the day, I gained 75 advocates for the sport, and lost one idiotic woman who obviously wasn't worth keeping in the first place. I consider 74 to be a worthy net gain.

In other quick news bulletins, I joined Mayo and her friends Lea and Tyne at the Peru (Vermont) County Fair. If I ran it, I'd more accurately call it the Peru Glorified Farmers' Market. Sadly we got there late just about when they were cleaning up after the all day affair, so our highlight was sitting in the middle of the road.
I served as the Stratton Mountain School's assistant's assistant soccer coach. That was actually a surprising amount of fun, with a highlight of driving to Mobil at half time and buying donuts (not for me. I bought a muffin).

Lastly, Vermont is pretty this time of year.