Some days you just don't feel like putting your seat on the saddle, but you also know you can’t stay where you are. I loaded the bike and draped myself over the handlebars. I was stiff and sore again this morning, and my mood was sullen. 

The scenery was uninteresting. I'd seen the Colorado Rockies, the Kansas wheat fields, the Smoky Mountains.... this flat, swampy, mosquito-infested, mold-covered belt of Gulf Coast red clay did nothing for me.

A tired old house in need of makeup.... The grass inside the chain link fence had long been dead, but the weeds outside still clung to life.

A dog barked, breaking the stillness.

I rolled along, feeling irritable at nothing in particular and everything in general. The silence should have been easing me into the day, but not today.

The dog barked again.

Then, a new sound.... the tick-TICK, tick-TICK, tick-TICK of running claws on the pavement.  I languidly gazed over my shoulder to see a German Shepherd galloping towards me, teeth bared, completely silent except for its claws clicking rhythmically on the concrete.

What the hell - I don't care. I just don’t have it in me this morning. Let him come.  He'll bark at my ankles, I'll ignore him, I'll leave his territory, then he'll stop barking.  If worst comes to worst, I'll squirt him with my water bottle and he’ll start coughing and sneezing. I became tired of this routine a thousand miles ago. 

But this time, the game would play out a little differently. 

One second I was rolling, the next instant I was completely stopped, balancing. Apathy slid into a slow simmering anger as I began to realize even without turning around what had happened... The dog had clamped his massive jaws onto my rim and, impossibly, completely stopped my bike.

Slowly, so… very… slowly… I turned my head to look behind me.  

Our eyes locked, his with a look of “I’m the biggest badass around here, chump,” and mine with the unblinking and slightly insane look which clearly illustrated the dark abyss into which humanity can descend. A smile formed on my lips. We stared at each other for a full five seconds and, in that moment, I think we had a complete understanding of each other.

With his newly-acquired knowledge of the darker side of human nature, the dog let go, and, with his tail tucked between his legs, slipped quietly away. From her front porch, a woman shrieked at the dog, “Git back over here!”

My rear wheel free again, I began pedaling. 

Only after a few turns of the crank did I realize that for a full ten seconds I had been completely balanced, and had never during the entire encounter pulled my feet out of the toe clips.