A fit, sane-looking woman avoids eye-contact but shouts encouragement from her bike to no one. “Come on! Keep it coming! You’re going strong, you guys!”

—

Two sixty-somethings in business-casual attire are having a smoke-break tryst in the passenger seat of an SUV, in a dirt parking lot, at 9:30 on a Tuesday morning. I manage only a fleeting glimpse of the bald-headed, sun-glassed man’s face, which is graced by an enormous smile.

—

20 mph headwinds make me slow and the dark scarier. Sounds are muffled; instantly whisked away. I’m liable to startle someone. No one could hear me scream.

—

I stop to help a drunken bartender who is sitting, a little bloody, in spandex, next to his wrecked bike. “I fucked up my shoulder, man; I just worked a double; I ate shit.” Trying to re-thread his chain, I tie it in knots. He calls a cab and thanks me profusely.