Actually, I rode in the city a couple of times before that but it was in the daytime, on the weekend, and with a group of fellow suburbanites the first time.
Next thing I knew, I was riding, with freshly broken fingers and a huge contusion on my face that ought to, I suppose, have cured me of urban cycling altogether, into the city at night.
A list of the rules I had for myself that were broken on the first such excursion would include: no riding in the dark without a half dozen or more companion riders, don't ride in the lane with traffic, no riding in cold weather (well, I think that first ride it was 40ºF or so, the coldest I had ridden at that point), no dumpster diving...
That last one might not have been my very first night ride into the city, and the chocolatier we raided has since put a lock on his dumpster, which is a shame.
So I picked up my friend Jill, I don't see her that much these days, to go for a ride after work. We'd both commuted to work, and while her home is close to my work, where I planned to sleep was not. We rode north on Mission and she pointed out the home of a friend we might drop in on. We did, had a glass of wine, and then when it was time to head out, I asked, 'Wanna see the West Bottoms?'
If I'd known she'd go for it, I'd have hurried that glass of wine. We didn't quite make the West Bottoms, but I got her to Desert Feud and YJ's in the Crossroads District before concern about daylight and her nonexistent headlight sent us back.
Through Westport, the Plaza, all the way to Prairie Village. As we were coming up Mission, she pointed out that we were back in her neighborhood if I wanted to peel off.
But my Camelbak was empty, it was already a late night, and if I refilled with water at her house, it would seem that much more epic.
And anyway, it was so much fun taking someone across that bridge for the first time. My first time involved an actual bridge, the bike-pedestrian bridge under I-70 where I want to marry Corinna. Most of the accompanying pictures here are from that bridge.
That bridge, I sometimes think of it as the Pons Asinorum Bridge, but leading Jill down Puckett (a favorite descent of mine even before discovering the urban core) and down Southwest Boulevard, I could feel her crossing her own personal bridge. We got from her friend's house in Fairway to downtown in half an hour; half an hour after that she was exclaiming that she never thought she'd be riding down Broadway in Westport.
The Westport/Plaza route was a practical decision, it's a route I ride regularly on my commute, it avoids the worst of the hills regaining that altitude we lost on Puckett, and it's more or less direct. I take it so often I'd forgotten how thrillingly dangerous it seemed the first time I followed Corinna and Brian on it.
"The city sure has shrunk for me," she said on the Plaza. I knew exactly what she meant: when I was walking with friends to the Fine Arts Theater to endure another showing of The Gods Must Be Crazy in 1985, if I'd only known that I could have hopped on my bike and been at the Tivoli in Westport in the same time.
I've had a bit of bad luck with cameras lately but got this one of Jill under the green hand before we left YJ's.
I've thought a few times that maybe I should organize a group ride that lures JoCo roadies into the city. It's hard, maybe almost impossible to cross that Pons Asinorum alone, but with a group and someone up front who's been there...
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