Man that’s an old bike you must be hardcore. Said the guy on the train.
No. Nope. Not even close. 7 gears see, there’s a few to choose from. I said.
All the while thinking, “if I was hardcore, I wouldn’t be on this fucking train, I’d be pedaling my ass 15 miles all the way home, uphill both ways in the rain all the way to Skyway bro”
You know there’s only 3 other places with hills like Seattle, he says::: :::San Francisco, some town in Louisiana, and Pittsburgh.
“you don’t say” I don’t say, but I’m thinking it as I smile and nod.
then as I’m getting off the train he says, go home and eat a good meal.
I smile again and wave as I exit.
Depending on the workload and the weather conditions and the bike I happen to be riding, there are days when I need to paperboy up the last Cooper Street hill on my way home. Single speed or 1 x 7 or full-on Ritchey Logic touring triple, sometimes I’m so cooked I need to paperboy up the last kick on Adams Lane to the Burke-Gilman at the very beginning of my epic uphill commute home, just a hint of what’s to come. Sometimes I’m so cooked I just get off and walk that shit.
When I do paperboy, it never ceases to remind me of Jonny Sundt, straight outta Okanogan County. I hear his voice talking shit in my ear, in a cocky road racer bike messenger voice saying “dig deeper” “is that the best you can do?” “paperboy that shit” and I laugh a little and grind up the hill.
paperboy
[pay-per-boi]
noun
a youth or man who sells newspapers on the street or delivers them to homes; newsboy.
verb
to criss-cross or zig-zag or snake or side-to-side up a steep hill on your bike, decreasing the gradient like a paperboy riding his BMX with an overstuffed bag full of newspapers to deliver before dawn
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