The air is uncharacteristically calm. I’m spinning quickly past the Sunoco fuel storage facility and out of the industrial wasteland and into Lawrenceville. After a fall and winter of dingy grays and browns, I notice the long parade of now-white dogwood trees lining Butler Street. They stretch on beyond the corner at 50th, on beyond to the corner of 52nd. In that moment, the grimy, dusty Butler Street faded away.

Skip, skip, skip. Traffic slows at the cemetery bend. I skip the rear wheel to check my speed and assess the traffic. The light has turned green, but the monster pickup truck a few cars ahead has to wait its turn to move. As the cars begin to creep ahead — snap — I pedal hard and slip into the narrow gap between traffic and parked cars. I slid back into my saddle and take the momentum up the hill to the next bend. Traffic slows again — skip, skip, skip — and I finally slow to a trackstand at 46th.

Posted on 15 April 2005