You Like Ropes?

I didn’t see the old man walk over. He was just suddenly standing beside me. I said, “Hello,” and he just looked at me as if I were wearing my bicycle as a hat.

I was caught up with his puzzled facial expressions, so it took a moment before I noticed he was wearing a security guard uniform. “Oh. I’m just taking some pictures.”

“Of what?” He had a Scandinavian accent.

“Of these ropes.”

Tom notice the confrontation and wheeled his bike over.

The security guard took a long moment to think about what I’d said. (Or he might have been waiting for me to explain my explanation.) “. . . Do you like ropes?”

“Well.” I hesitated. “. . . They just seem kind of funny . . . to me . . . someone who hasn’t been around big fishing nets . . . I guess.”

There was humor in that man’s eyes. He was ready to laugh with me, but I had no quip to deliver. I disappointed.


Unfortunately that wasn’t my least confident moment of the day. I took a spill crossing over some disused railroad tracks in Ballard. There are bits of me scraped across a street in Ballard, and there are bits of Ballard scraped into my hand and my leg.


Tom and I rode out to the Ballard Locks and Fishermen’s Wharf today. My bike’s odometer reports that we traveled 17 miles, but it also reports that my maximum speed was 99.5 mph. I guess if that were true, then I could have my pride back.

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11 comments

  1. Ballard Locks RULE – Take it easy on the bike, I am beginning to think you are accident prone!

  2. Hey, people, take it easy on Jeff. :) That rail that ate his front tire is a trap that I surely would have fallen into, if my bike had been in the pole position, as Jeff’s was. Jeff, I look forward to another ride soon.

  3. That is so cool that you have a friend, a blogging buddy, that lives in the same town you do. I liked his pictures a lot. And yours. Especially the rope. And (lol!) the story of the man who looked at you like you were wearing your bicycle as a hat.

  4. Blow: A player enters the scene. Bike Rides are truly fun; watching the movie “Boomerang” with Eddie Murphy in it is a lot more fun, however (and that’s saying something if your bike has a bell like mine)…

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