I’ve been down with an annoying cold for the past week or so, and I was also out of town for work, so I hadn’t been on my bike in practically a week. And I was cranky. Fortunately, I had some time in the afternoon before heading to work for meetings; unfortunately, today was cold and windy–the windchill below freezing, even. Turns out, though, with the right kind of ridiculously layered combination of fleece and wool, it was just another toasty day for a ride in the sun. As my pops would say, There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. I pedaled half a block up, half a  mile over, and moved over to the left part of the lane before stopping on red to wait for a left turn. I immediately felt lighter and more myself and stuck to the ground again, pedaling and shifting and pedaling and shifting, using my hand signals and moving with traffic. My eyes were watering from the wind and my nose was leaking, but I was back on the bike. As I turned to head into the park, I saw this sign, hidden at times by the yellow leaves blowing by it, and it made me laugh, because the road wasn’t rough at all. Oh, it was so, so pretty. Please never end, fall colors! It was the perfect cold, windy day for a ride, and anyway, by New Orleans standards, the road’s not rough at all, in the more literal sense. And then I zoomed up to the park and did my laps, round and round, passing the same two ladies with their same two dogs, large and small, the two guys out for runs, and the man doing his slow amble around. Down the hill and back home, just plain happy to be back on the bike.