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I've started (well, being me, I've started, then stopped, then started again) doing a morning walk. On days when I pretend I don't have time for a longer one, I go around an expanded block for about fifteen minutes. But on other days I go into High Park for a brisk workout (my kind of brisk; no one else's) with my cute walking sticks. I see few pedestrians or runners at 6:45 a.m., which surprises me, but whole fleets of bike riders. A lot of these are the Lycra boys with the tight bike shorts and tight shirts emblazoned with logos for bikes, tires, and accessories. These racers usually travel in packs around and around the "track" of the upper part of High Park.
Walking fast in High Park is very different from walking to enjoy the park, obviously. But I do observe things even as I speed-walk my way along the path. I walked north on the last leg of my trip that day, having made the turn around the Grenadier Restaurant, when I noticed an oncoming cyclist. He was a tall, lanky guy, on an equally tall bike to accommodate his long legs. Instead of being bent over the handlebars, the way the wienie-bike racers usually ride, he was bolt upright on the seat.
And he was riding no-hands. This feat always amazes and frightens me. I see a no-hands rider and I think immediately of a pebble or a stone that would deflect his wheel in the blink of an eye. Still, I figure these riders (the no-hands guys are usually under sixteen) have confidence in themselves and their bikes, and they watch the road for little obstacles that might throw them arse-over-teakettle.
This lanky rider was old enough to know better. But he didn't. Exemplifying to an exquisite degree the theory of Social Darwinism, he was not simply riding no-hands. He was texting as he rode.
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