I’m sitting at the traffic light in the evening gloom, perched in the mix of cool night air and warm exhaust, bathed in the glare of the impatiently waiting cars. Its going December in Florida and the chill is hinted. My vest sleeves are attached. A half bottle of tap water suffices where once a fully chilled container was needed. It’s nice in a hard cyclical way.

You see less and less of the summer flamingos, the Sunday riders who brag about their millage – all those pointless circuits (the Hobbit’s “There and back again”).

Lean your spindly, impractical bikes against your bowflex in the garage, oh warriors of weekend. Allow thine tires to flatted and your legs to grow soft by boobtube glow. Summer has passed, winter has fallen, and thou shall not ride until comfortable weather returns.

As for we commuters, we’ll keep at it, lights glowing in the gloomy twilight, zippers chafing our adams’ apples (except at stop lights, where we will zip-release a quick puff of steam). Beneath my helm shall go my liner. And into the frozen breach I shall press.

Even though the rains will be chilling (and the snow treacherous, though I’ll not face that, thank goodness), we’ll rack up our short runs, saving a half-gallon of gas here, a gallon there. Because this is what we do for ourselves, our nation and the planet – we ride. Into the cold and dark, we ride. For we are commuters, not flamingos, circuit-jerkers nor tripmeter-lollyboys. Commuters.

Ride on!