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[ST] _Here's_ a new problem...



...a few preliminaries:

I wear a 'Stich when I ride in town;
When I park, I lock it and my helmet to the rear grab handles with a cable
lock through the hip pockets;
When I have a series of places to go, I will often leave the cable lock
looped through the rear grab handles, and the 'coil' factor keeps it out of
the way.

So today after my lunch meeting, I rode to El Segundo to meet with a former
co-worker. He lives on one of the little streets just above the beach and
next to Imperial Highway, so his street is relatively steep (maybe 3  - 4%
grade) and typically covered with sand. His driveway is very steep (maybe 6
- - 8%) and somewhat less sand-covered.

So today I rode up, scouted for secure parking, and made the call that the
best thing to do was to park at an angle on his driveway, behind his
Navigator pimpmobile.

Parked successfully, hung out, looked at his (amazing) new woodshop (he
left the dot-com era with some small amount of bank, and now is considering
opening a cabinet shop and following sawdust - his true love).

Time to leave, we say our goodbyes, I suit up (had worn the Stich into his
back yard), earplugs, helmet, glasses, gloves, swing my foot over the tail,
and ... wait a minute ... my foot's kinda stuck.

Wiggle it a bit...can't see anything because I can't turn my head enough in
the helmet and 'Stich...so I pivot over (foot had been horizontal, like a
roundhouse kick, now vertical, like a front kick)...and my damn foot is
caught in the cable lock.

I tug on it, but my footing's not the best, and I wobble, and since I'm
holding the bars, the bike starts to wobble, so I quickly stop tugging.

Try bending my knee and extracting the foot, but the Stich won't let me get
my hips open enough.

Try bending over to grab the lock with my hand, but no way...can't bend
that far over in my Stich.

Stand back up and contemplate matters.

Try bending sideways to grab my foot. No way. Tug a little more, and almost
fall down.

This is now officially a problem. I could take my helmet off and yell for
my friend, but he's in his shop in the back and won't hear. I could pull
out my cell and call him, but the phone's in the house, not the shop, and
besides, he'd just get his digital camera out and laugh his ass off. I
could call 911, but I'm just too damn embarrassed to even consider that
until I've spent at least one full night outdoors.

Take off the helmet, take of the gloves, decide to strip off the top half
of the suit and grab the cable.

But I can't get it down over my shoulders in the position I'm in (Bohn back
protector keeps it pretty stiff), so now I'm standing on a steep sandy
driveway, one foot in the air, top half of the Stich tugged down around my
shoulders. Can it _possibly_ get any worse??

I try shimmying my shoulders to get the suit to slip down enough for me to
grab one sleeve with the other hand. Shimmy - 1 inch. Shimmy 2 inches.
Shimmy...there we go.

But my shoulder won't rotate into a position that will readily let the suit
off.

So I tug - it comes down a little bit. Tug again, a little more. Three or
four tugs later, and whew!! the sleeve slips off my arm, I can slip the
other arm out, bend over, and free my foot.

At this pint my g*d d**mn friend walks out, and asks "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing," I casually reply as I get all my gear back on,_carefully_
swing my foot over, and back the bike down his driveway...

...sheesh...


Marc D...




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