And still I ride. I give in to the thrill and to the fun, risks to myself and others notwithstanding. After all, if I wanted a life without risk I'd live in Naperville. I'd order my meat well-done and use paper towels to open restroom doors.

Me, Jan. 24, 2006

Bike racing has been my life for three years, and I've made it my calling to spread its joys, by writing on this blog, by rallying my team, by creating a Web site to recruit people into the sport.

How do I now square that with the risks that Saturday's tragedy reminds us of? How do I tell a family that their father should join me?

At this moment I can't.

Racing is no less safe now than it was a week ago -- with new awareness it may even be safer -- but at this moment I'm not sure how to go on.

At this moment my thoughts have not reached conclusion, but here is a start. I expect these thoughts to evolve and reverse and reverse again. They are what they are.

All life's decisions balance risk and reward -- the reward of jaywalking vs. the risk of getting hit by a bus, the reward of a hamburger vs. the risk of heart disease -- but right now my inner scales are out of calibration.

I know I want to race again, but the desire is not yet back. I can't imagine bearing down on a finish line, surging out of a pack or wanting a wheel enough to elbow someone off it.

And I can't imagine riding on the outside. As I drove to and from Wisconsin this weekend for a visit with family, my insides quivered every time I found myself staring at the centerline.

I mourn Beth, but separately and selfishly, I also mourn that my sport is in fact full of danger. It seems so unfair. Cycling would be just so perfect if it were not so risky, if it did not exact such a toll.

I've already sent myself to the emergency room twice this year. Ellen doesn't want me to race anymore. Mom says she understands this is what I love and that there are risks with anything, but I don't think she means it.

I could always ride without racing, but I can't fathom it. Cycling without racing would be like golfing without a green, or sewing without fabric.

In all seriousness, I would need professional therapy to switch to a new life without racing.

This is not to suggest that such a life couldn't be as fulfilling, with more free time and money for loved ones and other pursuits. I'm just saying I'm not ready for it yet.

Ten years ago I was 40 pounds heavier and content to idle in front of the television. A lot has changed. Cycling is now who I am. I like who I am.

I like the dedication it has taught me. I like the health it has brought me. I like smugly looking around a room and knowing I'm the only bike racer. In short, I like the person that racing has made me, to say nothing of the relationships it has found for me. Could I still be that person without it?

Would it be too much to say that cycling has saved my life?

If lightning were to strike me now, it could not be said that fate stopped me before I could live a full life, that I did not find all the joys and experiences I was looking for. Ten years ago, that would not have been the case.

Again with the inner scales, as we wrestle with what is worth the risk. For every 50,000 people who complete a marathon, one will die. For a big race like October's Chicago Marathon, that statistic almost makes tragedy a matter of course. But how many lives has marathon training saved? How many thousands of people will now live to be 80 and see their great-grandchildren?

What if my father had been 40 pounds lighter and rode a bicycle instead of idling his time in front of the TV?

When someone like Beth is robbed of the chance to experience a full life's joys, it falls to the rest of us to experience them on their behalf. This is our charge, whether those joys come from racing or not.

It's a natural reaction to want to continue this sport "for Beth," to do an extra 50 miles "for her." But I don't think it's necessary to continue racing on her behalf, and it's a little presumptuous to say what she would have wanted us to do. Anyone who quit this sport would not be doing her disservice. All that's important is that we do something on her behalf, that in whatever we do, we touch others, we create and we love.

For those who do decide to continue racing, there is a new duty: to keep the rewards worth the risk. There has to be a point to what we do. We must keep this sport fun, safe and positive, and we must let the haters, the intimidators and the cynics know that they are not welcome.

Even if it is not always requited and even if most teammates don't yet know me from Adam, I have in three short months developed an intense love for my team, not just for its riders but even for its uniform and what it represents. (Yes, I'm crushing on laundry.) When I see a teammate, any teammate, I swell with admiration and a desire to put their needs above my own -- true love, in my book.

Me, June 29, 2005

The team has long felt like family. I felt it last spring, when my father passed away. There is something that binds us, something more than that we pay dues to the same treasurer. Like family, we share goals and values. Like family, we did not choose to be together -- we just are.

Last night we met to hug, cry and tell stories.

Just as I can't imagine not doing this, I can't imagine doing this without them.

"What do you do with yourself," the orthopedist asked me, "other than riding bikes?"

I sat on the exam table. My legs dangled out of my gown.

"I cook a little," I said. I bit my bottom lip and wondered. I looked toward the ceiling for an answer. "In the winter I lift weights."

It was my first meeting with a specialist since the accident. All week, more experienced cyclists had shared stories of their own broken collarbones and welcomed me to the club. Two told stories of doctors re-breaking the bones to help them set correctly. The tellings made me woozy.

I wasn't very nervous about the prognosis. Indeed, I'd already written off the entire year. I was surprisingly fine with it. And if I could have peace with losing an entire season, losing anything less would be a gift. Thus, the orthopedist could only have good news for me.

Turns out the news was about as good as I could hope for. The fracture was severe but it would not need to be re-broken. Surgery shouldn't be necessary. One of my shoulders would never be quite like the other, but it will soon start healing and feeling better. I can be on the bike in five weeks, and start exercising as soon as I'm comfortable.

Racing by July?

I can sit unharnessed. I should still wear the immobilization truss when I sleep and a sling when I'm walking around, but that's not a problem. I've found them useful for getting seats on crowded buses.

There's still pain, but it's getting better. (In the emergency room the nurse had asked me to rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most pain I've ever experienced in my life. "It's a 7," I said, "but I've also had a very charmed life.") This morning I put on a T-shirt with only minimal agony, which is progress.

This was scheduled to be a rest week anyhow.

I've been extremely grateful for all the good wishes and offers of help. Ellen in particular has been an angel, scolding me if I so much as attempt to wash some dishes or dry myself unassisted after a shower.

I'm a little chagrined, however, by all the people who have assumed I crashed on Sunday's Bike the Drive. Are my bike handling skills so suspect that people would think I'd bite it on a charity ride?

I woke early this morning for a long ride, checked the weather and returned to bed.

"The good news," I said, "is that it's not raining. The bad news is that there's an inch of snow."

This is supposed to be a high-volume week of training for me, but 30 degrees in April is somehow less endurable than 10 degrees in January. And mentally I can no longer sit through four minutes on the trainer, let alone four hours.

The worst part of this weather is that there's no recourse. Normally when you are inconvenienced or treated unjustly you can write an angry letter or get a refund or ask to talk to the manager. But what can you do when your training plan is shot and you're heading east into a 25 mph wind and the freezing rain is slapping you silly? Pray angry?

Three recent moments:

121.

For the second consecutive year I file for a tax refund, once again thanks to sizable capital losses. This is the reward for being a shoddy investor. If it weren't for losing money I'd save no money at all.

122.

Ellen is taking the Blue Line to O'Hare when she realizes she has forgotten the pattern to the baby sweater she is knitting. With an international flight ahead of her, she calls me to lament.

I ask for the name of the book and find it on Amazon. The book has been scanned into Amazon's searchable database, so I am able to locate the pattern. It's blurry but legible, and I take to dictating over the phone.

I squint to read. I'm at work. The last thing I want is for co-workers to hear me giving knitting instructions over the phone. I cup my hand over the phone and furtively look over my shoulder so I can toggle to a spreadsheet should anyone important walk by. I feel like I'm talking to my bookie.

It's jibberish to me. In the beginning I am a kindergartner, stuttering my way through the mysterious code: "Kay one open-bracket kay one pee one close-bracket until end of row. Kay five moss st three parenthesis three colon five colon five parenthesis kay next ..."

But by the time we get to the sleeves -- "Are you sure you need me to read the sleeves? What about a nice sweater vest?" -- I am a pro, translating on the fly. "Now knit three rows. Work nine rows in moss stitch like you did on the back. Knit three rows. OK, now change to your 3mm needles and work 14 rows ...

And this is how I learn to knit.

123.

Ellen and I finally go to the new Hot Doug's (motto: "There are no two finer words in the English language than 'encased meats,' my friend.") We go on what we think will be the last cold Saturday of the year, figuring it's our last chance to beat the summer crowds.

(Hot Doug's, celebrated for its imaginative sausages and its fries cooked in rendered duck fat, has become quite the sensation lately, thanks in part to publicity from owner Doug Sohn defying the city's ban on fois gras. Pilgrims come from all over the Chicago area. Mario Batali was spotted there a few weeks ago. It's the Chicago equivalent of New York's Magnolia Bakery, except unlike the 45-minute wait for a $2 cupcake, Hot Doug's is worth every minute and every penny.)

We are wrong on both counts. Not only is it not the last cold Saturday, but it wouldn't matter anyhow: At 2 in the afternoon the line stretches around the corner.

We wait outside for 30 minutes. Ellen knits. I read. We take turns waiting in the car. Then we get into a vestibule, where we thaw for five minutes. We move into a second vestibule, where we wait another five minutes. Finally we get into the actual restaurant and can study the vast menu on the wall. The "game of the week" is a combination of elk and venison.

We split four sausages and an order of duck-fat fries. It's all outstanding. One of our sausages is a plain Chicago-style hot dog for control purposes. It may be the finest hot dog I've ever had. At $1.50, it's a steal. (This is the real gift of Doug Sohn: He doesn't rush his customers, and he doesn't try to squeeze every last dime out of them, as lesser men would be tempted to do. He may be a poor capitalist but he is a great American.)

As we leave, the line is as long as it was when we'd arrived. In the first vestibule, I say in a whisper loud enough to be heard by all, "I can't believe he ran out of hot dogs!"

It may be the first time people have their coronaries before stuffing their faces with sausage.

It snowed this morning, part of what is hoped will be winter's last throes. As Ellen drove me to work, gusts of wind whipped the snow and sent it dancing across Lake Shore Drive like huge white wraiths.

Last night was my last fiddle class. It was part of the non-cycling off-season merriment that I wanted us to enjoy before it was back to obsessive interval workouts and weekend roadtrips to backwater racing venues.

Each Thursday we headed to the Old Town School for class, fiddle for me, banjo for her. Folk is a major departure for me. I took 10 years of Suzuki, but I hadn't put bow to string in 15 years. The class was fun, and the mechanics quickly came back to me.

The other night Ellen and I played together in my living room. "You're getting good, honey," she said. "It almost sounds like a real song!"

After months of weight lifting and churning through countless NetFlix and Tour stages on my trainer, the racing season now resumes. My countdown to winter camp in San Luis Obispo sits at 1. The kits are washed, the Clif bars are stacked high, and "The Rider" is packed for its annual reading. I leave at 3:30 tomorrow morning, and 14 hours later we'll be on the road. It will be Leslie's first trip outside since her original test ride.

Last year's camp was a revelation, in which I surprised myself and others. More important than its physical training, it gave me the confidence to have a good season. This time the pressure will be to prove last year wasn't a fluke. The day I return, racing begins in Kenosha.

You know how whenever a plane crashes, there's always one guy who's alive only because he changed his flight at the last minute? I'm that guy. A major computer upgrade is launching Monday at work. There will be pain. There will be suffering. But I will be far, far away, suffering my way up the Pacific coastline. To get farther away from the situation I would need a boat.

Yesterday I remarked to a co-worker that I'll have to do 25,000 feet of climbing next week. "What do you mean you have to?" she asked. "What happens if you don't?"

I could only look at her blankly. How do I even begin to explain the hideous obligations of a Cat 3 cyclist?

There's a winter sensation that all cyclists hate. It comes when you've been on the trainer for an hour or two and you check your watch -- only to discover you've been riding for only 15 minutes.

I have a widget on my start-up screen that counts down the days to my team's training trip to San Luis Obispo, Calif. That is the week that will cleave winter from spring. The suck will end, the fun will begin. When I installed it, it read in the low 90s. I checked it today thinking that surely it would be well into the 70s, maybe even the 60s -- only to discover that it stood frozen at 85.

Rats.

This week I hopped on the trainer and watched "Overcoming," a documentary about CSC and its 2004 Tour de France. It wasn't as good as "Höllentour," but it included timely training scenes and was a fitting season's-first-movie-on-the-trainer. (I subscribe to the NetFlix base-training plan: If there's a red envelope by the TV, ride. If movies are in transit, rest. Tomorrow is either "Yojimbo" or "Dr. Zhivago," depending on how long I feel like going.)

My favorite character in cycling documentaries is the soigneur. He's always the same: stoic, wise and muscular, often with a Scandinavian accent. He's the one who, while all the others are out riding, will fill water bottles, fold laundry and, sotto voce, explain to the camera what's really going on with the team.

The soigneur in "Overcoming," Ole Kaare Føli, is the best so far. There's a great scene where he steps from the shadows and confronts directeur sportif Bjorn Riis, telling him to smile more. Even better is when he counsels Carlos Sastre after the death of his brother-in-law and then tells his future by kneading into his back, like a gypsy reading a palm. "You will have a good day tomorrow. I can feel it!"

Two recent moments:

119.

The worst part about bouncing down the lakefront path at 20 mph isn't the road rash to your knees, hips, elbows, shoulders, hands and forehead. (Yes, forehead! Even with a helmet!) Nor is it scuffing all your girlfriend's expensive time trial gear. It's not even the embarrassment of having done so all by yourself, without the assistance of cars or other riders.

It's the old man with binoculars who strolls across the grass, hands behind his back, to inspect your sprawled self. "I'm OK, I'm OK," you say, "but maybe I should consider birding instead." He nods in agreement and returns to the trees.

120.

Without breaking stride, the kid descending the stairs ahead of me whips out a black marker and tags "312 Mental" on the wall. I call for his attention, but he pulls his hood tighter over his head and starts walking faster. I have no idea whether he hears me when I yell down Lower Michigan, "You are the coolest guy in the entire world!"

Three recent moments:

116.

"I think I'll become a pro cyclist. Then I can retire at 33. Like Jesus."

"Careful. He had a better 401(k) plan. Jesus saved."

117.

We pull up into an L.A. strip mall for some Iranian ice cream at Mashti Malone's. In the parking lot there's a large dog sitting on top of a car, and he's created a commotion.

Except it's not a dog: It's a bearcat, a furry beast with a tail as long as its body. It prowls and snarls atop the car, occassionally taking swipes at curious onlookers. The owner holds it by its tail and reassures: "He's only playing."

I'm standing next to a prototypical L.A. character: The aging surfer, shirtless with kinky blond hair down to his shoulder.

"That's a bearcat?" Ellen asks.

"Yup."

"What's it doing here?"

"What are any of us doing here, man?"

118.

I'm in line at the bike valet after watching "American Graffiti" in Grant Park. Two hipster cyclists are passing out fliers to the weekend's bicycle film festival. The guy behind me accepts one from the lady hipster.

"So what do you think about Floyd?" he asks.

"Who?"

"Floyd Landis."

"Sorry. I don't know that much about the filmmakers."

Four recent moments:

112.

A man at the Jewel tosses a box of condoms into his grocery cart. He notices me noticing him, so he discreetly slides the box under a bag of diapers. The expression "closing the barn door after the horses have bolted" comes to mind.

In fact, I think it's time for a new idiom that reflects these modern times. If ever I see someone doing the equivalent of closing the barn door afte the horses have bolted, I'm going to say, "Looks like someone's hiding the condoms under the diapers."

113.

"This will be your first Fathers Day without your father."

"That's true."

"This was my first Mothers Day without my mother."

"But our family has a new dad to celebrate."

"And ours has a new mom."

"It's the law of conservation of parents."

114.

I'm at a Texas Roadhouse. I'm in Elkhart, Ind., where it's either Texas Roadhouse or Olive Garden, and Olive Garden doesn't sponsor a cycling team.

To my left sits a doughy middle-aged couple in polo shirts. They are discussing the persecutions they must endure for their views on immigration, and they run through a list of truths they must suppress.

"If they wanted to learn the language, they could, but they're lazy. Of course, you can't say that, because you'll offend someone."

"They're criminals just by being here. Why would we want criminals in our country? Of course, you can't say that, because you'll offend someone."

"Have you ever been in a Mexican city at night? Did you feel safe? Is that what we want our cities to be like? Of course, you can't say that, because you'll offend someone."

And then the woman says the thing that has me halting my fork inches from my mouth.

"I'd like to bring Ronald Reagan back just so he could kick. Their. Butts."

The things you're exposed to when you leave the city.

115.

"I need to shave."

"You could use my razor."

"And end up smelling like lavender?"

"You don't want to use the Venus?"

"No, I can only use Mars: Bringer of war and smooth skin."

The real punch line comes 10 minutes later when I am bemoaning all the hoary gender cliches -- that's H-O-A-R-Y -- employed by various newspaper columnists.

Three recent moments:

109.

"You hate oatmeal, but you like oatmeal-flavored Clif bars."

"And oatmeal cookies. Hey, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

"Oh, please."

"And oatmeal happens to be one such foolish consistency. It's so mushy -- blech!"

110.

"Only 28 days until World Cup!"

"How time flies. Seems like only yesterday it was 29."

111.

My new favorite sign of spring: The reappearance of the tai chi school that holds sessions in my alley. Sometimes they exercise using swords. Making my way through their ranks, bags of groceries in each of my hands, I feel like Neo from "The Matrix," operating in bullet time.

Six recent moments:

103.

On April Fool's Day, a 73-year-old man suffering a range of maladies is hospitalized. One possible diagnosis is hinted at when he is handed a brochure titled, "Living with Heart Failure."

For three days I laugh at the oxymoron. "Living with Heart Failure." Its wit is in its brevity, as it's a topic you would prefer not to be such a quick read. More comforting than a flimsy brochure would be a bound, 10-volume manual, perhaps with an inscription on the title page: "Take your time, Mr. Seemann. No hurry here."

104.

How strange. My brother is calling from my parents' phone.

105.

It's midnight. I don't know what I have to say, but I need to be talking to someone.

For a few moments, the accented voice of a United ticket agent is strangely soothing. He is awkward and uncomfortable but polite and helpful, and his English is outstanding. Twice, however, he stumbles when his script would have him chirp, "Thank you, Mr. Seemann, and have a great evening." Across the world and across the cultures, he seems to realize how thin on gravitas this salutation is to someone who is calling for bereavement fares, and he sounds apologetic.

And then I start calling West Coast friends.

106.

Now more than ever I thank God for having given me the prudence to have set my phone to vibrate and not "La Cucaracha."

107.

It's 3:30 a.m. and I can't sleep. I don't know whether to drink wine to bring myself down or whether to make coffee to wake myself up. I decide on coffee and spend the hours before sunrise writing and flatulating and reading the news and playing poker. So begins the period of tribute.

At 4 I trade e-mail with my sister in Greece.

At 5 I start calling East Coast friends.

At 7 I go for a ride. I self-time myself on a practice time trial. I don't do well.

At 10 I start calling my Midwestern friends.

At 11 I go to work. They send me home.

"I wanted to work today."

"Go home."

"He was a journalist. He'd want me to put out the paper."

"Go home."

I go to Greektown and buy a bottle of retsina for a toast to come.

108.

I pull a suit from the back of the closet. I own two: one blue, one gray. I can't remember which one actually fits, so I examine their breast pockets and grab the one containing the most recent wedding programs.

The crash was probably my fault.

It was my team's weekly group ride. After getting stuck towing a weak rider the last 2 miles into Highland Park, I was eager to proceed to some long, fast miles with our stronger riders. Finally, after a short warm-up, the pace turned hot and it appeared we were off to the races.

Halfway up a false flat it looked like someone might get to the top before me, and per usual I would have nothing of it. (Oh, to think how many grams I could trim if I left my ego at home.) Just as I jumped left to pass, someone swung around on my left and my front wheel clipped their rear. Down I went, hard.

Fortunately, my body broke the fall so my bike was mostly fine. I also had the foresight to land on my back, so I was able to reach up and catch the two people who landed on me. My hip and elbow took the worst of it, but nothing was broken, save for my helmet, which cracked. I'd wanted an excuse to buy a new one anyhow. The shock wore off after a few queasy minutes, and I was able to ride the 20 miles home.

At least it wasn't a race, and thank goodness I was using my crashing wheels instead of my Ksyriums.

A teammate insisted I pop in at the physical-therapy clinic that sponsors us. I checked out fine, and I had my single square inch of road rash cleaned by their first-aid specialist, a former Army medic fresh from Iraq. Our conversation went something like:

"You've probably seen worse than this, huh?"

"Uh, yeah. Nice Spandex, by the way."

Afterward I went straight to the bike shop down the street, which was hopping with fair-weather cyclists. Nonetheless, my guys gave me an even faster check-up than the clinic, truing my wheel and nursing my derailleur for only $7.50.

The special service may have been thanks to the case of beer I bought them last summer. It always pays to tip your mechanic in currency they appreciate.

The shop has a very "High Fidelity" feel to it, and I've come to like the guys who work there, even though I'm sure that behind my back I'm not spared their expert heckling. I like how they always ask about my Ksyriums, the way obstetricians also might ask about the babies they have brought into the world.

The one lingering issue was my training. With Saturday's ride cut short, I'd have to ride 5 hours today in order to make my weekly goal. Without intending as much, I did it, the hard way, the hard way being to get lost in the northern suburbs, the hard way being in the cold and the rain, the hard way being without enough food. But if I can do 90 miles in the rain today, next week's 44-mile race will be soft indeed.

Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.

Tim Krabbe, "The Rider"

I should have worn my booties this morning. They're uncomfortable and my teammates complain about how they squeak against my cranks, so I leave them behind when it's above 30, but by the end of today's ride my feet had lost all sensation. My toes were no more than rumors. I pedaled by faith, trusting that my feet were in fact down there and still connected to their pedals.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow.

On the bright side, Tim brought $35 of Yojimbo's gift certificates, my prizes for placing at the two Tour da Chicago stages I did. My first purse! Like the fisherman who buys a $10,000 boat to catch $20 worth of walleye, I've now recouped about 1 percent of my cycling investment. Obviously only one course of action can follow: race 99 more times this year.

It may sound like I've spent an outrageous amount of money on cyclng. That's because I have. Bikes. Wheels. Maintenance. Entry fees. Travel. Food. Coaching. Uniforms. Tylenol. But just as long is the list of things I don't spend money on. Cable. Car expenses. Fashionable clothes. Children. Pets. Decent coffee. Name-brand groceries. Interior decorating. Furniture. Dames. It all nets out, and in fact the non-racer's lifestyle may be more expensive to maintain than the racer's. Life is cheap when you haven't one.

This week I saw a colleague with a bottle of Gatorade Rain, whatever that is. "I don't know," he said. "They all taste the same to me."

The bottle caught my eye because I thought the label said "Pain" and it got me thinking about how fantastic that would be. Liquid pain. Lemon-lime liquid pain. It would be a great time saver for cyclists. Instead of riding for hours to achieve the exhaustion and muscle depletion we need to become stronger, we could just drink a glass of pain and go watch TV like normal people.

Until potable lactic acid becomes a reality, I'll have to settle for the real thing. Tuesday I leave for San Luis Obispo, Calif., where my team holds its annual winter training camp. Over six days we'll ride more than 350 miles and climb untold thousands of feet. It's liable to be the hardest riding I've ever done. But it will be warm, and it will be great.

The Sunday after I get back will be the first sanctioned race of the year, a criterium in Kenosha. Some are reluctant to race this early -- "It's too cold!" "The riders'll be squirrelly!" "I'm in base!" -- but my engines are revvin' too hot to pass up a race. Besides, we're racers. This is what we do. Let's ride.

And then, only 98 to go.

Two recent moments:

98.

At any given time there are as many as five pairs of shoes under my desk, various permutations and multiples of cycling shoes, running shoes, dress shoes, casual shoes. I'm running out of floor space. But just as I complain about having too many shoes, I think of the people who have too many feet.

99.

The best part about eating a slinger at Diner Grill comes years later when you tell people about the ordeal. Their eyes get big right about when you get to the fried eggs, the eggs that are stacked on top of the slices of cheese on top of the hamburger patties on top of grilled onions on top of the hash browns. You haven't even gotten to the chili, shredded cheese or side of toast.

Two recent moments:

96.

I've always promised myself I wouldn't get too anal about my training. Ride hard, ride long, rest up, repeat. Anything beyond that -- power meters, heart-rate monitors, anaerobic threshold measurements -- would take the mystique out of cycling, and it's mystique that makes cycling so glorious.

But for every moment of decisiveness, there is a moment of weakness, and sometimes they are one and the same. It's in such a moment that I buy a heart-rate monitor. Like most impulse purchases, I don't shop for a good price. I don't even mind when the only model the shop has comes with a women's watch unit. (I tell time like a girl!)

Nontheless, it immediately pays dividends. The literature says my heart should beat 135 and 150 times a minute, which I discover takes more effort than I usually exert. Even when I'm watching "Leaving Las Vegas" on the trainer and Elisabeth Shue is having violent sex with her Latvian pimp, I hover around 130. This tells me I need to work even harder, or watch even steamier movies. (Or maybe I need a new seat after all.)

On my first team ride using the monitor there is a junior with us, so the ride is more mellow than usual. My heart rate sits around 100 most of the morning, getting above 120 only when I'm pulling or climbing.

After the ride a half-dozen of us mill about in Wicker Park and discuss lunch plans. We decide to go to Sultan's Market. Five minutes after I've stopped riding I look down at my monitor: 177. That's as high as it's been, and a precious 13 beats from my supposed maximum.

Who knew I could be this excited for falafel?

Note to self: Don't think about chickpeas during a race, or surely my heart will exceed its maximum and cleave in two.

97.

I bump into a neighbor on the back stairs. "I was wondering," she says, "if I could bring my chicken to your place later on."

I give a queer look. "Sure, OK," I say, "but I had no idea you had a pet chicken."

Oh, right. The party.

She's made teriyaki chicken for our building's progressive dinner party, for which I have agreed to host the entree stage. I reminded the organizer that I have bachelor accommodations with bachelor furniture and bachelor housekeeping, including a bachelor toilet that sometimes doesn't bachelor flush unless you give the handle the ol' bachelor jiggle and hold, but she was unswayed.

Three recent moments:

93.

I'm watching "The Squid and the Whale." Two women in front of me make out for most of the movie, a strange but somehow fitting counterpoint.

94.

For the first time in almost three months it's warm enough to ride without heavy gloves. It feels like a prisoner's first moments out of the handcuffs.

95.

The singer scolds me for checking my watch, as if I'm the one taking the stage an hour late.

Getting old's a bitch.

Chicago pet store or strip club -- can you tell?

1. Collar and Leash
2. Doggpound
3. Puppy Lovers
4. Pete's Petland
5. Birds and Beasts
6. Ruff N' Stuff
7. Doggy Style
8. Off the Leash
9. Ruff Haus
10. Furry Beastro
11. Cat Calls
12. Lucky Horseshoe
13. Heavy Petting
14. Tails in the City
15. Commercial Leather Products
16. Chicago Eagle
17. Bow Wow Lounge

Pet stores: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17
Strip clubs: 2, 12, 16
Neither, as of this writing: 7, 13

Boss, life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and look for trouble.

Zorba, "Zorba the Greek"

Somewhat related, I placed 6th out of what I believe to have been a record 95 riders in Sunday's stage of the Tour da Chicago. I don't have any photos. In the interest of cutting weight, I left the camera -- and its whopping 1,050 grams -- at home.

Two recent moments:

91.

My gym offers a rudimentary fitness profile. The aerobic test is on a stationary bike, so naturally I nail it. The technician's eyes pop out. She's never seen a V02 this high: 67, whatever that means.

Then she administers the strength test, which measures how hard my hands can squeeze a caliper-like contraption. It goes something like this:

"OK, squeeze this as hard as you can."

Pause.

"I said, squeeze this as hard as you can."

"I am."

"Oh."

She circles "1 -- Needs improvement" on my chart.

I almost protest the nature of the test. "But my legs! Test my legs! I have arms of cheese but legs of steel!" No matter. As it is in life so it shall be with my fitness: My capacity to endure will always overshadow my ability to apply force.

92.

There used to be a restaurant downtown named Mirage. Months after it closed, its signage remains, so it looks like there's something there, but there's really not.

(Ald. Ted Matlak [32nd]) said he had supported the tear-down because the development project proposed for the site would add parking, reduce density and eliminate space for a corner tavern.

Jan. 5, 2006, Chicago Journal story on the planned demolition of the 1899 Artful Dodger building

Things I would do if I were an alderman and wanted to make my neighborhood suck, and the order in which I would do them:

1. Add parking, so there could be more cars, thus more congestion, noise and pollution. Also, less safety!
2. Reduce density, because people shouldn't have to live in the suburbs in order to be isolated from friends and services.
3. Eliminate spaces for corner taverns, so that drinking and socializing is ghettoized into loud clubs and sports bars.

Three recent moments:

88.

I'm walking down Glenwood and admiring my new lobster-claw gloves. They form a Vulcan salute -- two fingers, two fingers, thumb -- that make them warm yet dextrous.

I'm also reviewing the debate I've just had with a fellow cyclist regarding a rider's responsibilities vis-a-vis red lights and stop signs. His thesis was that if cyclists obeyed the rules of the road, drivers would be inspired to follow suit. My counterargument -- that he was a fantasist and an apologist -- was as inarticulate as it was ineffectual. It is only later, in the townhall of my mind, that I am a master debater.

And I'm thinking about the cyclist who was killed this week in Bucktown. I'd seen him at Critical Mass but never knew his name until now. Isai Medina. He rode a homemade chopper bedazzled with blinkies, and he always had a smile to share. That's the chopper for you: It sucks the mean out of anyone. Wednesday night he was standing on Western Avenue when a car hurtled onto the sidewalk, killing him. It was a freak accident, but it has nonetheless made me sad and angry.

I'm walking and admiring and reviewing and thinking when I see a car barrelling down the cross street. I step into the crosswalk, defiantly enough to say, "Piss off and slow down, 'cuz I'm not afraid of you," but hesitantly enough so that I can ditch in case the driver doesn't see or doesn't care.

Which he doesn't. He breezes through the stop sign and turns in front of me. His window is inches from my nose when I scream, "Gonna stop or not, asshole!?" Then I reach up to flip him not one but two middle fingers of righteousness.

Except I can't. The gloves. The lobster gloves. All I can do is wag two claws of powerlessness.

89.

Sign I have too much cycling on the brain, latest in a series: I see the headline "Ted Koppel to join Discovery Channel" and think, "Isn't he a little old to race?"

90.

The new 11-7 hours are killing me. I'm seeing my friends more, including the casual, chance encounters that are so important, but two nights in a row my eyes flutter while I'm reading and I'm in bed by 10. That hasn't happened since -- since when? Junior high?

I wasn't born to be this normal. Or maybe I just wasn't born to be this old.

Three recent moments:

85.

My back door makes a funny sound whenever it closes with my keys on one side and me on the other. It sounds like a guillotine. I should get that fixed.

86.

An oncoming car doesn't have its lights on, so I give my usual warning: I point at the driver, give him the evil eye and scream "LIGHTS!" as he passes.

It doesn't work.

Across the street there's a police car parked outside the Landmark. Two cops sit idle inside. The driver rolls down his window when I approach.

"You gonna go tell that guy to turn his lights on?"

"We're on a job here."

They appear to be staking out Eatzi's Easygoing Gourmet.

"Yeah, well, you sure look busy."

"So do you, sir."

So do I, sir? Nice comeback, Starsky.

I race down Clark and catch the car at Diversey right before the light turns green. This time the driver hears me. He jumps from oblivious to startled to sheepish in the instant it takes me to yell, "How 'bout some lights there, huh?"

When I return northbound, I give the cops a salute, but with four more fingers than they deserve.

87.

It's New Year's Eve and I've had too much to drink. Water, mostly. Some coffee, some Diet Coke. Ever since a long, hard ride in the morning I've been hydrating non-stop so that during the evening's festivities I'll be able to hold my own and maybe someone else's, too.

As a result, I'm walking to the night's first party and I really, really have to pee, so I stop to discreetly use the open-air facilities in a vacant Winnemac Park.

All the while I expect a searchlight to descend on me. Wouldn't that cap the year, to be arrested for public urination?

And then I think: Plausible deniability. What could they prove? You can't fingerprint pee. Not if I'm careful, at least. And not if I use gloves.

I have a map neurosis when I travel. Even when navigating a straight line in a grid city, I must pause every few blocks to reorient myself. God help me in a non-grid city like Boston or London. The spines of my guidebooks crack, the corners and folds of my maps turn soft, and any time I save by not getting lost is negated by all the time I stand checking coordinates and scratching my head.

It's in that spirit of wayfinding that I've been re-reading lately, giving second and third reads to the books that on their first read promised to be my guidebooks. Over the years I have shuffled along and changed, so it makes sense to revisit them. (And why bother having a personal library if it is never drawn from?) In this double-checking I reorient myself according to where I've been, what landmarks are now in view and what roads are newly opened or closed.

(That said, I concede that I'm not sure where I'm going, but I'm nonetheless happy with how I'm getting there. Recall my experience in Yosemite: I wasn't lost. It was the goddamn path that didn't know its way.)

No surprise, media consumption this year waned whenever the cycling waxed. Even though I didn't race as much as others, I trained like a madman, and my heaviest months for movies were the winter months when I plowed through DVDs on the trainer. (Movies spiked in May, but six of the seven were from the "Star Wars" series in anticipation of and including Episode III.)

Here, then, are my 10 most-enjoyed books, movies and races of 2005*:

Books:

1. "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," Jonathan Foer
   
2. "Ballad of the Whiskey Robber," Julian Rubinstein
   
3. "The Rider," Tim Krabbe
   
4. "Cloud Atlas," David Mitchell
   
5. "Slouching Toward Bethlehem," Joan Didion
   
6. "The Perfect Mile," Neal Bascomb
   
7. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," Robert Pirsig
   
8. "Ravelstein" Saul Bellow
   
9. "Big Deal," Anthony Holden
   
10. "Chicago Noir," Neal Pollack ed.

Movies**:

1. "Brokeback Mountain"
2. "Annie Hall"
3. "Hell on Wheels"
4. "American Flyers"
5. "Adaptation"
6. "Syriana"
7. "Capote"
8. "Before Sunset"
9. "House of Flying Daggers"
10. "Shopgirl"

Races:

1. Circuit of Sauk
2. Fall Fling Criterium No. 1
3. Tour da Chicago (Tic Tac Toe)
4. Lakefront Road Race
5. Sherman Park Criterium
6. St. Charles Cycling Classic
7. Alpine Valley Road Race
8. Leland Grand Prix
9. Matteson Tuesday Series (June 28)
10. Tour da Chicago (Prologue)

* Not to be confused with "10 best."
** I saw only 17 theatrical releases, so big- and small-screen viewings are classed together.

Three recent moments:

82.

I'm riding my trainer on my back porch, pedaling with one leg to improve my stroke. It's 20 degrees. A neighbor in the backyard holds a cigarette between fingers that tremble in the cold. Her dog rolls around in the snow. And they both stop what they're doing and look up at me like I'm the crazy one.

83.

The lesbian bar down the street -- one of the lesbian bars down the street -- has two giant nutcrackers stationed outside its door. Their chompers are as big as bear traps and look just as benign.

84.

Someone steals my salad from the break room. I spend the rest of the night casually glaring at my co-workers. I search their eyes for treachery. I search their teeth for specks of spinach.

Three recent moments:

79.

I keep a spare CTA card and $20 in a Ziploc bag that I take when I'm cycling. When I can't find my wallet I use this baggie to go downtown to see if maybe, just maybe I have left it on my desk.

The wallet's not there, so I return home on the train, resigned to having lost it. I'm feeling sorry for myself and calculating the expenses and hassles I'll have to bear. They are not many, relative to the grand scheme of things, but still I'm not in the mood for the deaf panhandler who walks up the aisle, and neither is the mentally retarded man in front of me who angrily points to the "No panhandling" sign.

Likewise, I'm not in the mood for the sick boy across the aisle who is throwing up into his grandmother's lap, but there's no "No vomiting on Grandma" sign for me to angrily point to.

80.

A few hours later there's a message from Visa's fraud-prevention department. I call and talk to a woman who says it was suspicious that my debit card was used to buy gas on the South Side that morning.

That's right: Buying gas is so out of character for me that it sets off klaxons at Visa. As if there were ever doubt, I think this cements my all-important bike cred.

"How did you know I hate cars?" I ask.

I'm strangely relieved to know that my wallet is now stolen and not just hiding under laundry -- if ever I am blessed enough to have a say in the matter, I'd choose to be the shlemazel over the shlemiel -- but it is somewhat alarming how well Visa knows my patterns. Will I get similar calls if I start buying low-fat milk instead of skim or start buying clothes anywhere other than Sears? If I attempt to buy dinner for two, will it go through?

81.

My roommate's wallet is on the dining room table. I look at it with the nostalgia of a pensioner. "I remember when I had a wallet ..."

The contents of my wallet as of 3:30 a.m., which is when I believe it fell out of my pocket somewhere on my ride up Clark Street after work:

• $114
• Two blank checks
• Two credit cards
• ATM card
• Illinois driver's license
• California driver's license (expired)
• Jewel loyalty card
• Metropolis Coffee loyalty card (one purchase from free pound of coffee)
• Work gym pass
• Cheetah Gym 10-workout card (two workouts remaining)
• Blood donor card
• USCF racing license
• CBF membership card
• CTA card (magnetic)
• CTA card (Chicago Card)
• Business card for Tony Becker (professional)
• Business card for Tony Becker (novelty)
• Business card for guy at the lighting store who in September received the fluorescent fixture I brought for repair, but who never called me back and with whom I never followed up
• Baby photo of nephew

A recent moment:

78.

"I was thinking about what color my umbrella is ..."

"Umbrella?"

"... and I realized, 'Hey, where did my umbrella go?'"

"Don't you mean parachute? 'What Color is Your Parachute?'?"

"I'm supposed to have a parachute? I'm worse off than I thought."

Two recent moments:

76.

Enough people ask whether I'm growing a beard that I begin to think the answer is, "Apparently not."

77.

I have a new wide-spectrum lamp. It's supposed to improve my disposition, especially during winter, and I could use that. I could use more light, more happy, a wider spectrum.

Mostly I use the lamp to read. This week I read "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Foer and find it extremey sad and incredibly heartbreaking. It fills me with longing -- insofar as one can be filled with emptiness -- which pretty much negates any benefit of the lamp and puts me right back where I started. It's like putting on a raincoat to stay dry and then jumping into a swimming pool.

Five recent moments:

71.

"I'm seeing Sleater-Kinney at Metro. The crowd will all be short lesbians, so at least I'll have a good view of the stage."

72.

When I start a book, I like to get through the first 10 percent in the first sitting. Then, whether it's a good book or not, I continue to flip toward the back to monitor what kind of progress I'm making.

On my 30th birthday, I decide that this is a life hack I wouldn't mind. I don't want any spoilers, thank you, but I wouldn't mind knowing where I am. Halfway through? Nine-tenths? One-tenth???

Also, better footnotes, please.

73.

"I noticed you taking communion."

"Yeah, I didn't want to be the first to not take it. Also, I was sort of hungry."

74.

I'm driving to Ohio with Gus and Conrad. I take a turn behind the wheel, and Gus does Sodoku puzzles in the passenger seat. I realize that this is the problem with Sodoku: Unlike a crossword, there's no potential for collaboration. At no point is Gus going to ask, "What's a one-digit number that's not 3, 4 or 6 and is also not 1, 5, 8 or 9? And if it's 2, then what's a number that's not 1, 2, 6 or 9 and is not ..."

75.

"I'm not sure which is worse: dating or looking for a job. They both have the same, insufferable interview process, the same 'I enjoyed meeting you, let's do it again' follow-up e-mail, the same sense of lonely rejection."

"But if you don't get the job, you can't go home and hire yourself."

So this World Series. It's a big deal in my city this year. I'm to understand that its importance rivals the Tour de France, but it lasts two fewer weeks? With each individual contest lasting much less than five hours? With opportunities to sit and eat sunflower seeds? Without much chance of death or maiming? And participants, even the ones shaped like Larry Walker, are still considered athletes?

America! What a country!

Serious Riders, Your Bicycle Seat May Affect Your Love Life

Studies add to earlier evidence that traditional bicycle saddles, the kind with a narrow rear and pointy nose, play a role in sexual impotence.

The studies, by researchers at Boston University and in Italy, found that the more a person rides, the greater the risk of impotence or loss of libido. ...

"A consumer's first line of defense, for their enthusiasm as well as sexual prowess," said Marc Sani, publisher of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, "is to go to a bicycle retailer and get fitted properly on the bike."

Researchers have estimated that 5 percent of men who ride bikes intensively have developed severe to moderate erectile dysfunction as a result. But some experts believe that the numbers may be much higher because many men are too embarrassed to talk about it or fail to associate cycling with their problems in the bedroom.

New York Times, Oct. 4, 2005

Why is everyone looking at me funny?

The long and the short of it is, I've always associated cycling with my problems in the bedroom. They just tend more toward problems of opportunity than to problems of motive.

The cycling season is long, much longer than the 18 weeks it takes to train for a marathon. It comprises endless training runs up and down the lakefront, hundreds of hill repeats in Highland Park and too much healthy living for anyone's own good. After seven months of this, I'm exhausted, especially with the healthy living, so at poker Saturday night I indulged with two brats and three beers, not exactly a bender but also not the best supper the night before a criterium. I figured, Hey, it was only a criterium, and I never do well in those anyhow.

(I'm mostly certain that the beers had nothing to do with falling off my bicycle on the sidewalk and taking a chunk out of my knee after I bumped into Sandy and had my weight too off-balance to clip out.)

Sunday's race was 10 laps at a suburban office park. The course was a .8-mile oval with a gentle rise between turns 3 and 4. Before the race I scribbled on my forearm the race numbers for the top five finishers in Saturday's time trial so that I could spot the likeliest threats. Naturally, officials assigned us new numbers, rendering my notes useless, and for the rest of the day I had people asking me what all those numbers on my arm were.

My nascent criterium strategy is cribbed from the Chicago Machine: Attack early, attack often. Often enough to make the race lively, early enough so that if it doesn't work I have time to recover before the final sprint. Better to race aggressively and come in last than be a weenie and come in first.

My first attack was with seven laps to go. I had a 50-meter gap when a young ABD rider bridged to me. I invited him to work with me on an expresss train to glory, but he declined. His face showed no emotion. I figured he was an errand boy dispatched by his orange elders (there were about 10 ABD riders in the race) not to form a break but merely to reel me in. It worked. I stood up after half a lap and rejoined the 30-strong pack.

I attacked again with four to go. I got the same gap, but not even a single taker. Again I coasted back.

I figured I'd burned my last match but managed to work back into the front 10. With half a lap to go I was in second, right on the wheel of someone who looked like a triathlete. I figured that was a good wheel to be behind: A triathlete would be liable to keep up a strong, even pace the rest of the way but might have a sprint even worse than mine, allowing me to overtake him at the line.

On the climb before Turn 4 I saw some riders accelerating up the right. Suddenly that looked like the place to be, so I ditched the triathlete and insinuated myself into their line.

I was in fourth position coming out of the final turn. This is the point of the race where everyone usually passes me, like the tide passing over a piece of driftwood. I focused on sticking to the wheels ahead of me and minimizing the damage.

Then a funny thing happened: Nobody passed. I started the sprint in fourth, I finished it in fourth, by far my best finish in any race. (The kid who had bridged to me earlier ended up winning; he's half my age.) I coasted down the course in disbelief. Fourth place? Really? I really belong here?

Sure, it was only a citizen's race, and I don't pretend I was the fourth-fastest or fourth-smartest rider out there; I just got lucky and sucked the right wheels at the end. But I've been waiting a long, long time for a hint of success. Sunday was the first seagull spotted after a transatlantic voyage: Land is near.

Today was a time trial, my first and the first event of the Fall Fling, a four-race series that will end most riders' seasons, including my own.

I experience gear envy at most races. I have an entry-level bike with entry-level components and entry-level legs. It's worse at a time trial, where about half the riders are flush enough to afford not just one bike better than mine but two, the second being a time trial-specific bike complete with $2,000 disc wheels and aero helmets pinched from the firing station of the Death Star.

Since I'm not likely to do more than one or two time trials a year, I haven't even sprung for clip-on aerobars, so I must resort to the poor man's aerobar: Resting my forearms on my stem and hoping circulation returns to my fingers by the next morning.

The race took place in Maple Park, a rural village that looked destined to be rural for not much longer. For every field being plowed there were two staked out for development.

The course was advertised as 10 miles long with two turnarounds. The wind was about 10 mph out of the south. In theory, wind-borne gains and losses should net out, but I felt like I was fighting it in all four directions the course went. And that's a Chicago truism I've learned and relearned: The wind will always be in your face, whether your cycling north, cycling south or sitting at your desk.

My goal was 25 minutes, which would have been an average of 24 mph and based on last year's times would have been good enough for the top 10. Coming into the last mile, I knew I was well below where I needed to be. My legs were regretting the two hours I'd spent on the bike at Critical Mass the night before.

I checked my odometer to see how far was left. With about a kilometer to go I got ready to gas it, to ration out every last calorie of energy, every last watt of power. I was in my poor-man's tuck and staring down at my front tire when I saw a thin blue line pass below. I looked back and saw a card table at the side of the road and some people standing nearby. "Was that it!?" I yelled. Yes, they said, that was it, the finish line. The race was done.

A few hundred meters later I came across a race marshal. "That was a pretty short 10 miles," I said.

"Yeah, it's only 9.5 miles."

It was my own damn fault. I knew at which corner the finish was supposed to be, but I blew it by navigating with my odometer and lost my chance to earn a few more seconds with one last push. My time was 24:33, which would have been great for a 10-mile course, but I didn't think it would earn me any points for anything shorter.

Race headquarters was in the village American Legion hall. While I was looking up my time a large, angry woman in a large, cheerful sweater came in demanding to talk to the race organizer. She proceeded to chew him out for the fact that she'd never been notified of the race and suddenly there were 50 cyclists going by her house. (In fact there would be 220 cyclists going by her house, one a minute for four hours.)

She was a vision of flimsy indignance, or perhaps of indignant flimsiness, so out of proportion was her rage to the grievance. The organizer was polite and apologetic, saying that press releases had been sent to the local paper and other outlets but that he was sorry one hadn't been mailed to her. She kept badgering him about not being notified; he kept apologizing. He took her address for next time.

"Do you even have a permit?" Yes, he said, and she demanded to see it. He dug it out and handed it to her, but she couldn't read it: She hadn't brought her glasses.

"There'd better not be trash in front of my house," she shrieked. "Who's going to clean that up?" Volunteers would be sweeping the whole course, he said.

"Why have I never seen a bicycle race here? Have you done this before?" This was the fifth time the event had been held in Maple Park, he said. "Hmmmph," she said. "Must have been on days I was working."

She continued grasping for a legitimate reason to be upset. It was like she really, really wanted her day to be ruined and the organizer's polite, rational answers were foiling her at every turn. Her final thrust was to act as if she was just looking out for us. "What if I pulled out of my driveway without paying attention?" At this all the cyclists within earshot rolled their eyes at this crazy lady, apoplectic at the thought of having to pay attention while driving. The horror, the horror.

Poker was at Jeff's tonight. During a break I went online and checked for race results. They were up. Out of 55 riders in my category, I finished 13th, much better than I had expected, considering how poorly I felt I rode.

Out of six people at the poker table, I came in second. But I've come to expect that.

Tomorrow is a criterium race. I don't expect anything to come of that, but next Saturday will be a longer road race, my preferred format, and it will be worth double points toward the overall standings. I'm hopeful. After that, winter. Rest. Indulgence. And then rebuilding for next season.

Three recent moments:

68.

"I don't think we've met. I'm [important person]."

"I'm Luke."

"You new here?"

"Five years."

"Oh. Well, welcome."

69.

I'm making salad for a small dinner party. It calls for candied pecans. I've made this before but always end up nibbling too many along the way. One for the salad, one for me. One for the salad, two for me.

This time I chew gum while I cook so I'm not tempted to nibble. This fails. In the end I just become adept at chewing gum in the left side of my mouth while eating candied pecans in the right.

70.

Sometimes I wonder about the motorcyclists popping wheelies or gunning their engines. Do they realize that when I pantomime the act of masturbation I'm referring to them?

Three recent moments:

65.

"Addison stop, Addison stop, home of the 2006 World Series, doors open on your left."

66.

A woman is Rollerblading down the lake. She's attractive, but she's not wearing a helmet and she's talking on a cell phone, two qualities that strike me as evolutional disadvantages, like the supermodel whose narrow hips couldn't possible bear a healthy child. It suggests a variation on one of Sandy's favorite jokes:

Q: What's the hardest part about Rollerblading?

A: Telling your parents you're evolutionarily disadvantageous.

67.

It's three months and a week before Christmas and I have already seen my first holiday display, and already a treacly version of "Frosty the Snowman" has made me want to jump in the river. Thank you, Marshall Field's.

Four recent moments:

61.

"... but then working for Marvel would mean living in New York City."

"Gotham!"

"Did you just say 'Gotham'?"

"Yes."

"Gotham is DC."

"Oh. Of course."

62.

A fat woman in flowing, fat-woman clothes gets off the Clark bus at Bryn Mawr. She's shaped like a pear -- an overripe pear that's been dropped once or twice. From behind thick, ugly glasses she squints at the noon sun. Teeth are missing. On her left arm is a constellation of sores, but also a large homemade tattoo: "LOVE."

63.

I gather that one sign you have a gambling problem is when your poker playing makes you late for other, more important responsibilities. Is it a problem, then, when your poker playing makes you late for other, more important poker games?

64.

"As soon as I could once again remember the lyrics to 'El Paso,' that's when I knew I was sober enough to get out of bed."

Two recent moments:

59.

"I found your blog the other day."

"Oh?"

"You must have a lot of spare time."

60.

Songs I hear on the radio on the first Saturday morning of September: Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" and Tom Petty's "Refugee." I change the station before "When the Levee Breaks" has a chance to come on. When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay ... Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good.

Three recent moments:

56.

I finish fifth in a practice race down in Matteson. Someone mentions that the guy who finished second has a titanium hip.

"Whattsamatta," I ask, "he couldn't afford carbon?"

57.

I'm at the Men's Wearhouse to buy a weddings-and-funerals suit, something to wear, knock on wood, no more than once or twice a year.

Taking a cue from my strategy for picking a wine, I take about three minutes to pick one from the second-to-cheapest rack. Just as I cannot tell the difference between a $10 bottle and a $20 bottle of wine, I cannot tell the difference between a $200 suit and a $800 suit. I'd get the cheapest, but I don't want to look like some sort of tightwad.

While one salesman helps me, another finds an excuse to walk by and casually says, "Yeah, this is a nice suit." When the tailor measures me, he says the same thing, in the same way, twice. Each time it sounds very sincere but also practiced, like George Zimmer has them say it a hundred times a day because he knows how much the customer likes to be complimented for his taste. I feel like I should tell them to stand down: "Guys, it's OK. I know it's an ugly suit. I'm cool with that."

58.

We're waiting for "Broken Flowers" in Old Town. An ad for the National Guard comes on screen. A handful of young, beautiful teenagers with young, beautiful bodies frolic in what is either a volleyball court or a desert wasteland. They pump their fists. "Freedom rocks!" a red and blue logo proclaims.

We are bewildered. I wonder whether there's been a mix-up at the ad distributor. Perhaps somebody in red-state America is waiting for "Stealth" to start, seeing ads for French wine and hummus and also saying, "What the fuck?"

Three recent moments:

53.

Bob comes over to help me change the pedals on my racing bike. He feigns shock at all my new cycling gear. "You're gay for bikes!"

OK, so it's true that my bikes rival my friends for my most important relationships in Chicago, and that there's nobody else I currently clean weekly with a Q-tip. But Bob forgets an important fact: All of my bikes -- Faith the mountain bike, Charity the commute bike, the Colonel the racing bike and a fixie I'm hoping to buy this fall whom I haven't even seen but have already named Amanda -- are girls.

I'm gay for girls.

54.

I'm at Johnny Sprockets, my neighborhood bike shop, because I have decided to buy a new wheelset and naturally have decided to buy it right away. I cannot wait to shop around for the best price.

My wheels are there but they're not ready, so my guy at the shop drops what he's doing and starts working to make them true and centered. I sit and listen as he and the other mechanics talk shit. No manhood or mechanical skill goes unquestioned.

My guy carefully spreads talcum powder inside a tire before inserting the tube and putting it on the wheel. We chat about wheels and racing and my bad experience when I strayed and visited a different shop. He asks whether I have a wife or a girlfriend or anything.

"No, just my Jamis."

"That's what I thought, the way you came in here and bought a wheelset without having to consult anyone."

"I've heard of people who are able to do both -- ride and have a girl -- but I've also heard of the Yeti. Doesn't mean it really happens."

It's been an hour and he's still working on the second wheel. There's no way his commission on this wheelset covers more than an hour of labor, let alone labor this careful.

I slip out. Busch Light is the best stuff at the liquor store across the street, so I walk a half-mile to the Jewel and buy a case of Goose Island. When I return, the work is done. I give my guy the beer. "Aw, gee," he says, "you didn't have to do that."

He shows me the boxes with my wheels. While I was gone he had tossed in about $25 worth of tubes, gels and chamois creme. "And you didn't have to do that," I say.

How often does good karma balance itself this quickly?

And that's the great thing about the local bike shop. Even if I could have saved $100 by going elsewhere, my guy does things he doesn't have to do. There are many things in this world that are best measured in dollars and cents, but sometimes things are best measured in beer and chamois creme.

55.

The Cubs are on at the gym. Derrek Lee hits a groundball to first and runs to third, where he is forced out.

Bwuhhh!?!

Then I realize I'm watching in a mirror, but for a second it made sense: The Cubs have been playing so poorly that a clockwise run around the bases wouldn't be all that surprising.

People know how I feel about color-man Ron Santo, but still it breaks my heart to hear the anger and frustration in his voice. A few days earlier Santo gave his signature "Aw, geez!" -- "Aw, geez!" belongs to him as much as "Holy Cow!" belonged to Harry Caray and "Hey, hey!" belonged to Jack Brickhouse -- when Aramis Ramirez popped out to the infield and casually walked down the baseline, bat in hand. "Does he even want to play?" an exasperated Santo asked.

It would not have surprised me if the next thing I heard was Pat Hughes explaining that Cubs legend Ron Santo had put on a uniform, barged into the dugout and demanded to be put in at third, just to prove that a legless, 65-year-old diabetic could run with more spirit than Aramis Ramirez.

My mother possesses a pure heart, a heart incapable of entendre or suggestive language. How else could she e-mail this sentence regarding my brother and his wife:

S&M are their days off.

Two recent moments:

48.

Do Butch and the Sundance Kid hold hands before they jump off the cliff ahead of the armed posse? I can't remember, but it seems like they do. At the very least there's a twinkle of love in their eyes.

This is the scene I think of at the end of Stage 2 of the Tour de France. Four riders have spent several hours attempting to escape the enormous peloton, an audacious move as likely as a sand castle escaping the rising tide.

They ride alone, each taking turns breaking the wind. Periodically a motorcycle tracks close and announces their lead. Five minutes. Four minutes. One minute.

With less than 10km to go, they are caught. This is always heartbreaking, to see brave escapees swallowed by the relentless, heartless maw of the peloton. This time it's doubly so: At the last moment, the final two escapees reach out and hold hands in a gesture that says, "We gave it everything we had and failed, mate, but I'm glad we tried." And then they are surrounded and never seen again.

Watching this alone at a bar, I am moved. It's because of these moments of love, almost as much as Lance's moments of triumph, that I race.

49.

I ride through Waukegan on my way to the Wisconsin border. A parade is about to start but I navigate through the barricades and have Main Street to myself. Children wave to me from the sidewalk. On my way back the parade is in full swing so I walk my bike down the sidewalk. A woman hands me a small American flag and wishes me a happy birthday.

Four recent moments:

44.

A black SUV is parked in the bike lane on Damen. Three men stand on the sidewalk outside new condo construction. As I pass I yell my usual epithet: "I don't park