The more years you have behind you, the more time you’ve had to add to your repertoire of the idiotic things you’ve done over the course of your lifetime. I’m now in my sixties, so my collection is, by now, an impressive stockpile of forehead slapping. 

When a person leads with that, you expect him to tell you something stupid that he’s done and, in this instance, you won't be disappointed.

By that time, I had pedaled my bicycle more than three thousand miles across thirteen states. That’s a lot of time spent in the saddle. A LOT of time. There’s a point at which you start to feel that the bicycle is a part of your body, an extension. You never feel off balance any more than you would when you’re walking. You know what it weighs, you know how it handles, you know what to expect with any tiny shift of your body. You don’t have to think about how to turn a corner on the bike, you just think it and your body makes it happen. You know how slick the tires are, and at what point they’ll skid. You have become so intimate with your bike that you no longer know where your body ends and your bike begins. 

So it was when I decided to ride through Beaumont (pop 118,067) on Interstate 10. You should understand that it’s one thing to pedal across rural Louisiana (or MS, or AL, etc) on an interstate.... and that it’s a completely different level of insanity to do it in a town of almost 120,000 people during rush hour at 4:30 in the afternoon. 

I don’t remember too many specifics about the roads I had pedaled on over the previous 13 states, but I remember Beaumont. I sprinted along the far right side of the debris-littered shoulder (and, at 23 years of age after more than 3,000 miles, I could SPRINT), always keeping one eye in front and one eye in back. Other than being very heavily trafficked, it wasn't that much different from a number of other roads I’d pedaled on, with one exception:

The exit and entrance ramps were death traps.

I remember thinking,

“If I’m not careful, I could die.”

That is NOT something that many 23-year-olds consciously think. The typical response for that age category is more like,

“Hold my beer and watch this!” and

“Hoooold ON! Did you just say TRIPLE dog dare?!?!?!?”

“I could die” shows how legitimately concerned I was for my safety.

I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I didn’t die.