New Required Bike Equipment

(Set sarcasm mode=on intensity=50%)

After getting hassled the other day on my long ride by some stupid, bored, loutish teenage boys with nothing better to do than to hang their scrawny butts halfway out of their mother's car and scream unintelligible obscenities at cyclists while screaming by at 60 mph, I'm considering adding a new piece of equipment to my list of "must-purchase" toys:



It's a light-weight, collapsible, locking police baton.

Now, I don't actually plan on hitting anyone with this. I just want to whip it out from time to time, just in case some yokel with too much Keystone Light and not enough IQ pulls over one of these days. Heck, it would be a nice thing to wave at a dog, too; they'll back off from a man with a stick. This is perfect -- the collapsed baton is like six inches long, I could rig up a place under the bike seat for it, ready to hand.

Or I could just go old-school and get a frame pump. I dunno.

I'm only about halfway joking with this. I have to say, when something like this happens, I feel pretty vulnerable out there on the side of the road. I start thinking bad thoughts, like how there are near-continuous rumors of KKK activity in this rural area, and about how very, very few cyclistst there are here, so I totally stand out like a sore thumb, and about some of the more lonely parts of my ride, when I'm totally miles from nowhere.

By the way, the stupid teenagers (redundant, I know) were driving a late-model maroon sedan, Ohio license plate DFP 9821. So if I go missing, avenge my death, mmmkay?

(end sarcasm, for now)