Spokes of rage

(The following text was part of a improvised, creative writing assignment composed while on a job-sponsored career course. It was written after a particularly rough day on the roads and strays a bit from my normal, zen-biking aspirations).

These days it seems like every time I get on my bike, someone tries to kill me. I guess it’s not so strange - everybody’s number is up at some point, but sometimes it seems like my number is plastered on the dashboard of  every Volvo and Saab in town just waiting to display me as some kind of crucified human hood ornament. Actually there is a whole hierarchy of malice in city where I live (Stockholm) just waiting to consume me and all the other  bikers on the road.  

The cars are at the top of this murderous food chain of the road. Something happens to the human psyche when you put a person behind the wheel of a car; their IQ drops to that of a chimpanzee and their testosterone levels shoot through the roof. I’ve had drivers actually swerve to try and hit me just because I was in the way of their God-given privilege to travel unhindered from A to B. And they all seem to be preoccupied with their iPhone. God knows that checking fucking 'Words with Friends' is far more important than whether or not their front end is going to make me into a paraplegic.

The bikers on the road are animals too. In fact they are worse than animals. They are a sub-species of blood-sucking parasites. They all want to be like Lance Armstrong hopped up on a triple espresso of the growth- hormone EPO. They race through town at breakneck speeds -  fat white dudes in mankinis - manically peddling their fat asses so that they can get to a cushy office chair in the center of town, sit down and get fatter.

Then there are the old geezers on the sidewalks. God-forbid my front tire should  come in contact with a curb 100 meters from where there are standing. They  waste no time in telling me what a wretched individual I am for not abiding by the divine laws that segregate me from their shitty little charpé. I would like to see them run the gauntlet of central Stockholm at about 3 PM on a weekday afternoon. Ditsy teen-aged girls Facebooking with friends and wandering in and out the bike lanes. Delivery trucks and lazy fucks, doubled parked so that you are plunged in and out of moving traffic without notice. Shattered glass from the drunken weekend hoards, randomly placed construction equipment, puddles of filth, maniacal moped drivers, idiots, crazies and brats from the over-privileged parts of town…