(testo in italiano qui)

This is not  a rhetorical or a provoking question; I just would like to understand how it is possible!

Yesterday morning I rode my mountain bike because the path I usually cycle on is now a  blanket of leaves . Beautiful, nothing to say about its charm, but super dangerous for road bikes.

 Over the past two days, it had rained a lot, so now it’s actually a wet  blanket of leaves . Not the best ever.

Yesterday-morning’s bike ride began with the unexpected encounter with Death , just outside the town center. I was riding along the cycling path that runs alongside the main road  when a Bright Asshole , driving his van suddenly decided to bend toward the gas station, just in front on me.

Surely if I had been on my road bike, I would not be here now writing this post …. I suddenly braked more than I could and I ended up being 5/6 millimeters to the back door of the BS’s van . While braking I screamed like crazy with fear and the guy didn’t seem to care about me.

Needless to say, he didn’t even say “Sorry”. For the two / three kilometers ahead I wasn’t even able to ride at a decent speed because  my legs were still shaking in fear.

So , ok , seen from another point of view , I think that the mountain bike saved my life, which is not too bad .

But ..what else ?

I cycled 30 kilometers (unusually during the week I cycle 50km, but I was too pissed off and after 15 I decided to go back home ) my speed was so slow! No more than 25km per hour , not even on the “Gavardina” cycling path , where I normally I reach 35km/h.

 My mountain bike seems to me , or maybe it really is , super heavy . I always get the impression that i have to change gears, and that’s what I keep doing, but it doesn’t work as it should do.

 After 15 km, I’d had enough . I left the cycling path and I took a main road . The more I pedaled there , the more I kept telling myself how stupid I am, because surely the blanket of leaves would have been better then the concrete of the main road ! At a traffic light a bunch of cyclists on their wonderful road bikes passed by, they seemed as light as air and I felt that nasty feeling that I thought didn’t belong to me: envy .

Now , I wonder , is it true that in Autumn is better to  leave the road bike in the garage and to ride a  mountain bike ? Perhaps the answer is in my morning encounter and in the avoided crash.

Who knows ?!