If there were a problem with cycling, it would be its diversity.  Everyone hates the road cyclists who laugh at the fat, slow plodders, who ride leisure bikes and hate anyone who wears cycling-specific clothing.  The mountain bikers hate the roadies, the commuters hate the racers and the randonneurs pretty much hate everybody.  Complaints are flung about concerning respect, passing on the right, passing three abreast…  If that weren’t bad enough, and it usually is, there are motorists out there who pretty much hate all of us.  Really, when you look at this little microcosm of society, the irony is awesome.  It can sometimes seem that everyone just wants to be angry.

It’s not quite as fever-pitched as a battle as it can be made out to be in the media but it’s not all unicorns and rainbows either.

I used to be exceptionally level-headed when it came to motorists.  I’d get a diesel pickup truck driver blow his exhaust out as he passed, I’d laugh.  Someone would buzz me, I’d wave.  Hey, I even had a kid chuck a full 2-liter of Coke out the window at me once.  I flipped that guy off, but I thought that was fair.  I’ve since grown a little more jaded.  I’ve chased a couple of cars down, or at least tried to, had one SUV driver head straight for me as if he were going to run me over, before veering off at the last second, narrowly missing me (and this wasn’t an accident, he blocked the lane first and I went around him)…  I’ve become an angry cyclist, to match the aggression I see too often.

A few weeks ago, heading home and in the last ten miles of a century, the driver in a car behind us honked its horn a couple of times just before it passed us.  Reflexively, up went my middle finger.

One of my friends yelled at me, “Hey man, that’s somebody’s grandma!  She was just letting us know she was back there.”

Dammit.  I apologized to everyone in our group when we got back.  I didn’t even know the honker was a lady, let alone an elder.  I still wish I could find that lady and profusely apologize for my profanity, but I can’t.  The damage is done.

However, that experience was not without its benefit.  See, when we “Friends of Bill” quit drinking, we learn to apply a set of principles to our entire lives.  To continually evaluate our impact on those around us.  To promptly admit it when we’re wrong and to make amends for those errors wherever possible…  Not just as it pertains to drinking, but to everything we do and everyone we encounter – and here’s why:  I am an escape drinker, when you boil it down, all drunks are in some way.  I drink to oblivion to escape the reality that I make crappy choices when I’m in that madness.  The more I have to escape from, the harder it is to stay away from the first drink that inevitably leads to me in a jail cell, or worse.  The idea behind a rigorously honest approach to self-evaluation is that, done correctly, the less I have to escape from, through being a productive member of society and an all-around decent guy, the easier it is to remember the misery of being a drunk.  The easier it is to stay away from the real wreckage.

Well, I applied that principle to the unfortunate gesture I made toward that older lady.

While I can’t make direct amends, I can make them indirectly.  I can change my behavior.  I don’t know how, or when, my cynicism crept in but it did and it needs to go.  I’ve ceased flipping the bird and am back to smiling and waving…  The simple truth is, if I’m going to be the happy me, there’s no room for the angry guy.  While this probably won’t change a whole lot of attitudes towards cyclists, I’m not necessarily making this change for them.  While everyone will benefit from a nicer me, ultimately I’m making the change for me.

We have a funny saying in recovery’s circles:  I can have all of my misery back any time I want, all I have to do is sidle up to a bar and take that first drink.  Oh, one more thing…  If you notice, twice I mentioned the “first drink”.  If you wonder why I pay so much attention to that first one, rather than the eighth or the one that gets me happily inebriated…  This is very simple to explain:  When you get run over by a freight train, which car kills you, the caboose or the locomotive?

Exactly.

Finally, to wrap this post up, I began my little change in attitude about two weeks ago and it’s gone quite well.  Every time I have a reason to be angry about a motorist or some other perceived slight, I remember that I’m not going to be that angry guy anymore…  Then I think about Skipper and the Penguins of Madagascar.  “Smile and wave, boys.  Smile and wave.”  I changed the tape that played in my head.  Simple as that, and it only takes about 20 years of practice to be good at it.