Ftrain, by Paul Ford

Twenty miles in the sometimes pouring rain, wearing jeans like a genius. Hit a slick railroad tie on 1st Ave in Brooklyn and went over sideways, taking most of the force on my right knee and right elbow, upsetting the nuclear family to my right. "I'm okay! I'm okay!" I said and dragged myself to the sidewalk to confirm that. I did seem to be okay but for a moment I thought I'd undone all $230 of work on the bike, but in a minute I'd reattached the chain. My knee felt better riding than standing, so I got back on and rode down to Neptune Ave via the greenway along the Belt, then, after a stretch lost in yet another corner of Garage Brooklyn, found my way back via Ocean Parkway. Soaked through by then, all the way to my innards. The final slog up the Prospect Park hill was a second-gear triumph yesyesyesyesupthehill until it very suddenly wasn't a triumph at all; the will went out of me in one soggy instant and I heard myself saying "I give up" over and over as I pushed along on a drastically reduced gear. I was alone then in the rain at the crest, alone until the pitter of a tall slend woman's size-six running shoes came up behind me, and passed. All the wheels and smelting technology and Archimedian principles in the world no match for her steady jog. I passed her on the way out onto Grand Army Plaza. She was beautiful, drifting through the rain-dusk in the dark of the trees, and all in white--a ghost sent to humble and abase the chub cyclist.